Watch on the Rhine

Plot synopsis:
It is set around the World War 2 time.The Mullers are coming across the Mexican border to start their life in America...actually, to visit Sarah's (Bette Davis) family in Washington D.C. The family is made up of Sarah, the mother; Kurt (Paul Lukas), the German father; Joshua, the eldest son; Babby, the cute, innocent little girl; and Bodo, the baby of the family who likes to use big words and tries to act intelligent.Meanwhile, Sarah's mom, Fanny (Lucille Watson) is preparing for her daughter's homecoming. She has the help of the (housekeeper? mainly friend) named Annise.The third set of people is Sarah's brother, David (Donald Woods); and the Count Tek (George Colouris) and Marthe (Geraldine Fitzgerald). David is somewhat taken by Marthe and they admire each other from afar. Tek, we find, is a slimy character. He often participates in poker games at the Nazi Embassy with high-ranking Nazi officials.When the Mullers get to Washington DC, they are overjoyed to be there. We begin to learn about Kurt's job as the rest of the family does...he is a leader of the Underground Resistance Movement. Tek becomes suspicious of them when he finds that they have a loose looking suitcase but a carefully locked briefcase. One afternoon, he breaks into the briefcase and finds money, a gun, and a seal with the letters MF. Having remembered hearing a Nazi official talk of the Underground leader Max Friedenk, he calls the Nazi Baron von Ramme to see. Tek find that Max Friedenk was actually arrested recently. However, the count is still suspicious. He calls the Embassy and asks a man how much info about a Resistance leader would be worth. "If he were in the US, not so much. But if we could get him out of the country, you could name your price...within reason."Tek is liking how this sounds, considering how Marthe and him have run up quite a bill. Besides, he wants to go back to the ruins of the declining Europe. He gets a list of the Resistance leaders' descriptions.That night, when Sarah is getting ready for dinner, she opens a drawer to get a handkerchief or something of the sort when she sees the briefcase lock has been tampered with. She grabs it out and examines it. She finds that the gun was put back in the wrong place.She goes downstairs and tells Kurt. ...Tek tells Kurt that he thought Kurt was Max Friedenk. But then he starts reading off the description of a Gauter, matching Kurt to a T. Tek demands the money from the briefcase. Kurt won't give it to him. Fanny goes to the safe to get her money to pay Tek off.Meanwhile, Kurt knocks Tek down. He tells him that he knows that Tek is a slimy person and that he knows that if he lets him go now that Tek will just turn him in to the Nazis as soon as he gets paid by the Mullers. He leads him outside and shoots him.Inside, Sarah calls for a plane ticket for Kurt. She then explains to Fanny and David about what had to be done to Tek and how she knowsa she will never see Kurt again.Kurt comes in. He says he is sorry that he had to do it but that the man would've endangered many more people. He tells Fanny that they can give him a couple of minutes to say goodbye to his kids and then call the police, or that they can pardon him and give him a chance to get to Europe. Fanny blesses his voyage. Kurt goes upstairs and says goodbye to the children.Kurt gives his blessing and responsibility to Joshua. He says goodbye to Sarah. He leaves.A couple of months later...it is winter. Sarah is sitting by the fire while Joshua is sitting at a desk working on a map. He is drawing out a route on it. Sarah can only guess that Joshua is trying to plan a route to rescue Kurt and confronts him. Joshua admits that he is and that Sarah should've that this would happen and that it is his responsibility to do this. He also asks Sarah to send Bodo when the time comes. Sarah complies.

Tags: murder

Review:
It may (or may not) be considered interesting that the only reason I really checked out this movie in the first place was because I wanted to see the performance of the man who beat out Humphrey Bogart in his CASABLANCA (10/10 role for the Best Actor Oscar.
I especially enjoyed Paul Lukas, Lucile Watson (rightfully nominated for an Oscar), Bette Davis (wrongfully not nominated), George Coulouris and, oddly, Eric Roberts, who plays the middle child.
The message this movie makes is a good and noble one, the scenery (meaning the house) is beautiful, and the acting is the excellent.
Paul Lukas, repeating his Broadway role, is quite convincing as Kurt Muller, the upright man that wants to make a better world for himself and his family.
Mr. Lukas does a great job portraying Kurt Muller, repeating the role that made him a stage luminary on Broadway.The other best performance is by Lucile Watson, who plays Fanny Farrelly, the matriarch of this family.
Paul Lukas' performance brings tears to my eyes, and Bette Davis, in one of her very few truly sympathetic roles, is a delight.
Watch On The Rhine started as a Broadway play by Lillian Hellman who wrote the film and saw it open on Broadway at a time when the Soviet Union was still bound to Nazi Germany by that infamous non-aggression pact signed in August of 1939.
Lillian was actually months ahead of her time with this work.The play Watch On The Rhine ran from April 1941 to February 1942 for 378 performances and five players came over from Broadway to repeat their roles Frank Wilson as the butler, Eric Roberts as the youngest son, Lucile Watson as the family matriarch and most importantly villain George Coulouris and Paul Lukas.Lukas pulled an award hat trick in 1943 winning an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and the New York Film Critics for Best Actor.
After many years of being vagabonds on the continent of Europe, Davis Lukas, and their three children come to America which has not yet entered the European War. They're made welcome by Lucile Watson who is thrilled naturally at finally meeting her grandchildren.The fly in this ointment are some other house guests, a friend of Davis's from bygone days Geraldine Fitzgerald and her husband who is also from Europe, a Rumanian diplomat and aristocrat George Coulouris.
Everyone is entitled to compare films they choose, but the similarities of "The Mortal Storm" and "Watch On The Rhine" are clearly the problems of refugees threatened by the Nazi juggernaut, while the main comparative point brought out with "Casablanca" is the seeming unjust treatment of Humphrey Bogart in 1943 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, because they chose Paul Lukas instead for the Best Actor Oscar.
Few can claim that.To me the film to look at with "Watch On The Rhine" is based on another play/script by Hellman, "The Searching Wind".
The film has many good performances, led by Lukas as the exhausted but determined anti-Nazi fighter/courier, Davis as his loyal wife (wisely keeping her character as low keyed as possible due to Lukas being the center of the play's activities), Coulouris as the selfish, conniving, but ultimately foolish and ineffective Teck, Lucille Watson as the mother of Davis and Geraldine Fitzgerald (as Coulouris' wiser and sadder and fed up wife), and Kurt Katch, who delivers a devastating critique (as the local embassy's Gestapo chief) about Coulouris and others who would deal with the Nazis.
This time, however, I found the movie interesting from the perspective of the unaware Americans who allow Nazi sympathizers not only to live in their home but to become so familiar as to almost be part of the family.
An American woman, her European husband and children return to her mother's home in "Watch on the Rhine," a 1943 film based on the play by Lillian Hellman, and starring Paul Lukas (whom I believe is repeating his stage role here), Bette Davis, Lucile Watson, George Coulouris, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Donald Woods.
An anti-Fascist, a worker in the underground movement, many times injured, and wanted by the Nazis, Kurt Muller (Lukas) is in need of a long vacation on the estate of his wealthy mother-in-law.
But he finds out that there is truly no escape as one of the houseguests (Coulouris) is suspicious as to his true identity and more than willing to sell him out.Great performances abound in this film, written very much to put forth Lillian Hellman's liberal point of view.
The monologue he has about the need to kill is gut-wrenching, just to mention one scene.Though this isn't what one thinks of as a Bette Davis movie, she gives a masterful performance here as Kurt's loyal and loving wife, Sara.
Watching it, one feels like an 8 year old child being punished by having to write "I will not become a fascist" on the blackboard 100 times.Now I understand that it was made during the height of WW2, and was intended to be a brave condemnation of Hitler and the terrible suffering he brought about, (which anyone would whole-heartedly applaud) and I'm sure it accurately captured the mood of the day.
But it is presented in such an immature, over-obvious, sledgehammer way, it fails abysmally as a work of art.The only good performances here are from Paul Lukas, who brings sincerity and intensity to his role as a quietly heroic anti-fascist; and Lucile Watson as the amusingly ill-mannered rich grandmother who slowly comes to realize how dangerous the world has become.
For those who think the theatre is dead or in extremis and yearn for the good old days, I urge a peek at Watch On the Rhine, as bad in its way as Angels In America, which only goes to show that the theatre had one foot in the grave sixty years ago..
Paul Lukas, reprising his Broadway role and winning the Best Actor Oscar, plays an anti-Nazi German underground leader fighting the Fascists, dragging his American wife and three children all over Europe before finding refuge in the States (via the Mexico border).
Although attempts have been made to open out the original play with exterior scenes in Washington, at the Germam Embassy and also in the grounds of the Farrelly mansion (filmed at the old Busch Gardens) , the whole film is fairly set- bound, betraying its theatrical origins.Paul Lukas, a good actor if not a great one, repeats his much admired and very earnest Broadway portrayal as a German anti-Fascist and won the Best Actor Oscar, probably because of the times in which this film was shown.
It is a pity that the great Mady Christians (who played the role on Broadway) was not asked to reprise her role.More pleasure is to be found in the supportng roles - especially Lucile Watson as the matriarch (also reprising her stage performance) and the superb English actor Henry Daniell as an icily cynical German Baron.
The only ingredient missing in all this is the great Hattie MacDaniel, who was under contact to Warners then and would surely have injected some much needed humour to the proceedings.At one point, the Nazi-sympathising Rumanian Count de Brancovis (George Coulouris) says to Kurt Muller (Lukas) that he cannot place his accent or from which part of Germany he comes.
Although set during World War Two, this movie, which is an excellent adaptation of the Lillian Hellman play, deal with themes which are relevant today and would resonate with a contemporary audience.
I can see why Bette Davis took the role "for its importance." It teaches so much to the American people of its time - and even now - how we don't really know what it means to be a European in an Old World so often used to the kinds of conflict that created World War II.The movie also strikingly doesn't feel like propaganda, even though the message was clearly to move its audience into action (aren't all worthwhile films aimed at personal change?).
Lukas is excellent recreating his stage role, as do all the adult actors here excepting Bette and Geraldine Fitzgerald, as a man fiercely committed to his cause.
It is inspiring because it is about people of noble purpose.To me, the most interesting part of the film is the education of Fanny and David Farrelly (Bette Davis' mother and brother).
Now, with complete justification, we Americans are reviled throughout the world.Today, we watch this film with a new awareness: That the rise to power of Nazis in Germany was not due to a flaw in the German character, but, a flaw in human beings that allows us to rationalize anything that will justify our committing immoral and heinous acts.
Not only is the movie too preachy, but the acting is either too stiff (the children) or too hysterical (Bette Davis, in one of her weaker performances).
Her racism does not stop at that, she makes her primary villain a Romanian, who is treated with contempt by even the Nazis, and whose lack of intelligence is commented on as a facet of his race, by the German anti Nazi hero.It is hard for anyone who is not carried away by wartime propaganda to sit through this movie, in spite of some commendable acting by Paul Lukas, Lucile Watson and George Coulouris..
Bette Davis, Paul Lukas Best Actor Winner (beating Bogart in "Casablanca"), and Screenwriter Dashiell Hammett adapting His Friend Lillian Hellman's Long Running Play.But this may also Bring some Disappointment.
Noble, but up Against what seems like Impossible Odds, They Land back at the Bette Davis Home to Regroup.This is then Played as a "Wake Up Call" for Americans to Join in on the Fight, because LOOK, there may be Nazis Hiding Under the Bed. It's all a bit much to take in with a lot of Drudgery to Endure for the few times the Film Rises to the Task of pointing out all the Intrigue and Dangers lurking just Below the Surface.Recommended Only for Film Historians and Betty Davis Fans, and for the Curious to See what Performance Beat Out Bogie.
At her house he meets a nasty Romanian count (George Coulouris) who is pro-Nazi...and begins to discover that Lukas is a freedom fighter.Based on a play written by Lillian Hellman this is well-done but ultimately doesn't work.
Lukas and Lucile Watson give great performances but Coulouris and (surprisingly) Davis give terrible ones.
Based on a Lillian Hellman play (adapted by Dashiell Hammett), this film concerns Paul Lukas and wife Bette Davis coming to live with Davis' mother (Lucile Watson) in Washington, D.C. after running away from the trouble in Europe (the film is set in 1940).
But, I'll continue to watch the movies she's in because I like the stories/writing/supporting casts, but, I'll always be thinking, of different actresses that could have done a better job..
It is telling, however, that for a movie that underwent major changes during production, CASABLANCA holds together much more firmly than the stolid WATCH ON THE RHINE and, needless to say, also caught the public fancy to a much greater extent – remaining one of the most fondly-remembered Hollywood classics to this day!The comparisons between the two films involve the chase by Nazis for an underground leader: here, it is anti-Fascist German Lukas (quite fine under the circumstances, if frail-looking for the requirements of the role and evidently struggling with the rich dialogue – invariably delivered in a Hungarian accent he never managed to shake off, like his compatriot Bela Lugosi!) who has come to Washington to stay with the family of wife Davis (who seems perennially on the verge of tears here!); also living there are a rather wasted Geraldine Fitzgerald and her ill-suited and impoverished Romanian aristocrat partner George Coulouris, sympathetic to the Third Reich (represented by Henry Daniell and Kurt Katch) despite having fallen out of favour with them.
If educators want to teach their students about the consequences of and the resistance to oppressive, totalitarian rule, they would do much better with movies on the topic with excellent scripts and direction, such as "Casablanca", "The Mortal Storm", or "The Diary of Anne Frank", a stage play brought to the screen that still captivates me after several viewings, just to name three of many, much better possibilities .Paul Lukas may be an excellent actor, but his thick Hungarian accident does not pass as being German at all.
However, neither my friend nor Pat Buchanan seem to have gotten the film's point: Some people hurt and kill to grab other people's land, goods, and liberty; such people dominated the Axis Powers and "enough" didn't appear in their vocabulary.Paul Lukas deserved the Oscar he won.
(Why are "Casablanca", 1942 and "Watch...", 1943 in the same competition?)2) (Not really a S*P*O*I*L*E*R)The reference Paul Lukas makes to "World War One" I found interesting since "World War Two" hadn't started yet, at least in the framework of this film.
Kurt and Sara Muller (Paul Lukas, Bette Davis) and their three children flee Nazi Germany to live with Sara's family in Washington, D.C. Little do they know Sara's family already has two guests, Rumanian count Teck de Brancovis and his American wife Marthe (George Coulouris, Geraldine Fitzgerald).
It has some fine acting (Lukas won an Oscar) and a good script written by Dashiell Hammett based on the play by Lillian Hellman.
Watch on the Rhine (1943) *** (out of 4) Based on the Broadway play, this film won Paul Lukas the Best Actor Oscar at that years ceremony and he's certainly the main reason to watch this.
Lukas and wife Bette Davis, along with their three children, are back in the U.S. for the first time in over eighteen years.
Outstanding film of 1943 with Paul Lukas giving an Oscar calibrated performance as the head of his family bringing them back to America from Europe as the Nazi menace deepened.The usual terrific Bette Davis maintains her reputation here and for a change was not nominated for best actress for this or any film of 1943.Encounting treachery around them, Lukas successfully deals with the situation.
The film version of "Watch on the Rhine" betrays its stage origins a bit too much to make it a classic, but it's acted with enough conviction from its cast that it still carries a considerable wallop all these years later.Oscar-nominated Paul Lukas plays an underground Nazi resistance leader making a stopover in the U.S. so that his wife (Bette Davis) can visit her home and mother (Lucile Watson, also Oscar nominated).
But Lukas, Davis and especially Watson are very good and help the film achieve its success as a rousing call to action.My favorite part of the script is its treatment of Watson's character and her son, Davis's brother.
Watch on the Rhine is one of the best anti-nazi propaganda films made during World War Two. Paul Lukas was certainly deserving of his Oscar.
Bette Davis and Paul Lukas and their three kids are leaving Mexico and coming into the United States in the first scene of the movie.
A German-born engineer (Paul Lukas), his American wife (Bette Davis) and their children travel from Mexico to the United States to visit his brother but their plans are complicated by a Romanian count.Davis stated in a 1971 interview with Dick Cavett, that she played the role of the wife for 'name value' because the studio did not consider the film a good financial risk, and that her name above the credits would draw audiences.
While this subject was handled in other films,in this one a good part of the action [particularly the climax]takes places inside the house.This enables the movie from being more than just a"Nazi-hunting" movie.It shows the effect on the family.It also provides for some of the films better moments as Lukas 'character has to explain what he has done ,what he has to do and why he must do what he is about to do.The same can be said of Davis'character as she explains her devotion to his cause.This has started to destroy her family and she realizes that this will continue as her sons take up the cause.Fine acting by the two leads.Film made me think of "The Mortal Storm"."Criss-cross" is another good film on the subject which ,like "The Mortal Storm deals more with anti-semitism..
All the fine acting and "A picture" production values that Warner's had at the time this film was made can't save it from it's ponderous dialogue and message.
Bette gives a fine performance as does Lucile Watson but Paul Lukas is like a block of wood and those kids are, well, as subtle as biting down on a jalapeno.
For all these years I have avoided watching this film because, although it had one feature I really like (Bette Davis), it appeared to about WWII along the Rhine River...and I usually detest war movies.
So, last evening, I was quite delighted to learn that the movie was completely different than I had expected, and although it was about WWII and Nazis, it takes place primarily in Virginia (or is it Maryland).In 1940, before the U.S. had gotten into WWII (although the film was produced in 1943, when the end of the war was approaching) German-born engineer Paul Lukas, his American wife Bette Davis, and their 3 children Joshua cross from Mexico into the United States to visit (or live with) Davis' mother in suburban Washington.
At the close of the movie, one of Davis' sons announces that is planning to return to war-time Europe to find his father (Lukas).
It was something of an act of bravery for Hellman to write a play about good Germans at this time (maybe she thought they were the ones who signed the Nazi-Soviet pact!).
There's neither a "watch" nor a "Rhine" in this film, but there is some pretty good acting (including the killer "Pops" Muller--who sort of combines Baron Von Trapp from THE SOUND OF MUSIC with Hannibal Lecter--for which Paul Lukas won an Oscar).