49th Parallel

Plot synopsis:
U-37, the first German submarine to reach Canada, sinks a merchant ship in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, then runs for cover in Hudson Bay. Captain Bernsdorff sends men ashore to capture a trading post - just before U-37 is destroyed by an RCAF bomber. Lieutenant Ernst Hirth, eager but inexperienced leader of the shore party, (comprising his resentful deputy Lieutenant Kuhnecke and the sailors Vogel, Kranz, Lohrmann and Jahner), follows his orders regardless. In the trading post, the Factor is updating French-Canadian trapper Johnnie Barras (just back from eleven months in the wild) on the outbreak of war when Hirth and his men burst in, injuring the Eskimo servant, Nick. After an edgy night, a radio ham from Grand Rapids, Michigan, calls up for his regular chess game with the Factor and Johnnie shouts an alarm into the microphone. Jahner shoots him, and he later dies. Knowing that a seaplane will come to the post to investigate, the Nazis plan to hijack it and fly to the neutral U.S.A. They take the plane (with much loss of life), but Jahner is shot by an Eskimo marksman as it takes off. Kuhnecke misjudges the plane's fuel reserves and dies when it crashes into a lake, still well north of the 49th parallel. The four survivors come upon a Hutterite community of émigré Germans, led by Peter. The gentle Vogel befriends the fifteen-year-old Anna and, impressed by the community's spirit, volunteers to bake its bread. Hirth takes the Hutterites for secret Nazi sympathisers and openly appeals for their help at a general meeting, where Peter angrily refuses him. While Hirth, Kranz and Lohrmann prepare to move on, Peter persuades Vogel to stay on as the baker. But Hirth returns and summarily executes him for desertion. The three Nazis reach Winnipeg, and learn that the Mounties are on their trail. They set off for Vancouver, intending to take a Japanese boat to Russia. Mounties suspect their presence at the Indian Day celebrations in Banff, and Kranz is arrested when he panics and reveals his identity. Hirth and Lohrmann proceed on foot across the Rockies and stumble into the camp of Philip Armstrong Scott, an English aesthete and academic researching the history and culture of the Blackfoot Sioux. They respond to his hospitality by burning his paintings, books and research notes and tying him up, but he breaks free and captures Lohrmann. The wounded Hirth hops the freight car of a train heading for the U.S. border and overpowers fellow stowaway Andy Brock, an AWOL Canadian soldier. The train halts at Niagara Falls and Hirth identifies himself to the U.S. customs officers, demanding to be taken to the German embassy. But Brock persuades them to classify himself and Hirth as "improperly manifested freight" and to return his carriage to Canada. Now disarmed, Hirth is no match for Brock's fists...

Tags: murder

Review:
After a short while their plight becomes known and the whole world is watching to see which nation, Canada or Germany, can manage to win the metaphorical battle.The most interesting thing - considering the movie as propaganda - is that Powell's intended audience was the United States: he wanted to get that country involved in the war, or at least get the people of that country to support the war.
For American audiences, it's disturbing to visually search for the international actors like Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard and Raymond Massey scattered throughout the film.
As the film starts with the magnificent mountain scenery and Eric Portman's fantastic introductory speech ("shook hands on it and kept it ever since...", "the 49th parallel, the only undefended border in the world...") you seem to be immediately transported into the spirit and persuasion of this exercise in trying to convince all Americans, not just Canadians, that they should join the fight, their place is with all the others, Europeans, British, French, all peoples under the Nazi yoke..
These aren't cold, immoral monsters, but ordinary people, swept up in euphoric Nazi ideology and pining for the simpler life they can barely remember.When a German submarine is destroyed in Hudson Bay, Canada, the surviving Nazi soldiers  led by the fiercely patriotic Kommandant Bernsdorff (Richard George)  must navigate their way across the country into the then-neutral United States of America.
But these Canadians, as placid as they first seem, can surely recognise fascism when they see it, and each of the soldiers is picked off one by one, like the characters from a war-themed version of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None." Among the unwitting local patriots is French-Canadian trapper Laurence Olivier  a caricature but an entertaining one  anthropologist/author Leslie Howard, and grinning deserter Raymond Massey, each of whom shows the Nazis that they're dealing with an enemy whose sheer spirit overshadows all of Hitler's armies combined.The film was apparently intended as a tribute to Canada's involvement in the war, and perhaps  as was Hitchcock's 'Foreign Correspondent (1940)'  a call-to-arms for the then-isolationist United States, who would hold back until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941.
In Powell's view, the war is not just about democracy against dictatorship, but also liberalism against authoritarianism, individualism against conformity and, above all, pragmatism against idealism.The way the conflict is illustrated through the German sailors' encounters with diverse Canadians is subtle, intelligent and highly effective.
By bringing the production to Canada, Mr. Powell achieved a coup by shooting the film in locations that show the majesty of the country.In a way, "49th Parallel" shows the difference in ideology from the stranded Nazis with the friendliness and openness of Canada.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger's artistic collaboration at the start of WWII benefits from a powerhouse cast.Clearly propaganda, the cast and crew apparently came from all parts of the world to lend their talents for a "mutual cause." With strains of Ralph Vaughn Williams's score woven into the cinematic fabric, Pressberger's elaborate story is expansive and involved.The Oscar nominated film is worth watching, and it's interesting to see Raymond Massey's speech as a G.I. so very Yank-oriented, without a trace of the mannered style he later acquired.
Although the Hutterite leader (nicely played by Anton Walbrook) is made to give some sententious speeches about freedom, the whole episode is very sensitively played and really makes us feel we have set foot inside a Hutterite commune.Walbrook and Glynis Johns (as a young Hutterite girl) give the best performances, along with Raymond Massey as a Canadian AWOL soldier who discovers his conscience when it is really needed.The Germans seem like stage-brutes, but it would be unreasonable to expect the subtlety of "Das Boot" in 1941.
William Wyler's "Mrs Minniver"(1942),Fritz Lang's "man hunt" (1941) and "hangmen also die"(1943),Alfred Hitchcock's "foreign correspondent"(1940) and "lifeboat" (1943),Frank Borzague's "mortal storm"(1940),Howard Hawks's "sergeant York"(1941)in America,Michael Powell ,but also Alexander Korda("that lady Hamilton"(1941)) in England ,no to mention Russia (SM Eisenstein)or France (Marcel Lherbier's "entente cordiale" (1939)).To be precise,one should add that Powell's masterpiece " a matter of life and death"(1946) (stairway to heaven) was also a commissioned work "to sweeten the US/England relationship".When a movie brings something to heart and mind,it transcends propaganda and can become a work of art.Leave the term to Leni Von Riefenstahl's "Triumph des Willens".Powell's movie is absorbing,it literally grows on you: during the first fifteen minutes you say to yourself:"another war movie" but further acquaintance shows this:Michael Powell is an auteur,a pacifist ,and he knows cinema can be a powerful tool because of its popularity.Barely realist,it sometimes becomes some kind of fable road movie.Violence is thoroughly absent except for the beginning and the execution .The movie is full of extraordinary scenes:Sir Laurence Olivier dying,clutching his rosary;the German Christian community -influenced by Frank Capra's "lost horizon"(1937) but the atmosphere of which predates Peter Weir's "witness" by forty years-the long dialogue about democracy:here,Powell puts a question over the notion of "native country" no less;this recurrent picture of kneading trough which epitomizes not only the daily bread but also the new values the children who escaped from crumbling Europe can share;the gigantic gathering of white and red men where a mounties man asks everybody to scrutinize his neighbor's face,in order to find the enemies,a sequence to rival the best of Hitchcock;Leslie Howard,the educated man,who loves Matisse,Picasso and Thomas Mann,whose works he proudly keeps under his teepee;the finale at Niagara falls on the trainor how to find a pacifist solution.Besides,the movie completely avoids pathos and grandiloquence by a very mundane last line which Billy Wilder would not disown.A movie where the stars do the supporting cast job:Sir Laurence Olivier only appears a dozen of minutes (love his "alouette,gentille alouette" tune);anyway,before he shaves ,you hardly know him;and ditto Leslie Howard,but his character is so endearing you'll remember him even if it's a ten -minute part.One ceaselessly rediscovers Powell (not forgetting his first-class scenarist Pressburger)and it's only the beginning.Most of his works are crying to be seen.If propaganda means conveying a message of love,peace and understanding,you can call most of his movies so..
Six German officers are stranded on Canadian soil after their sub is sunk in the Hudson Bay. As they travel across Canada trying to make their way to neutral US territory, they interact with a wide variety of people, many of whom fled Europe during the first world war and paid dearly for their freedom.
The title refers to the border between the U.S. and Canada, which is immediately identified by the narrator as "the only undefended frontier in the world".Enter a German U-boat, which gets sunk in Canadian waters, while six Nazi soldiers look for food and supplies on land.
Olivier's cameo is particularly shameless with an overripe accent that portends the hamminess of his twilight career roles, while Howard's has a touch of ironic poignancy given his death from a German fighter attack soon after production was completed.The most interesting passage occurs when the soldiers happen upon a Hutterite farming community in Manitoba, an Amish-like oasis of pacifist civility that must have served as the inspiration for Peter Weir's "Witness".
There is evidence of Powell's and Pressburger's compelling cinematic style in various shots (like the plane crash sequence), and revered British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams composed the atmospheric score that beautifully underlines much of the action.For all its good intentions, however, the film is compromised by a narrative that rarely inspires and other than the Nazi portrayals, characters that often seem cardboard-thin.
The movie's piece de resistance is the scene when the escaping U-Boat's crew have stumbled across a community of Canadian/German immigrants, and wrongly assume that they are supporter's of the Nazi regime that they have in fact fled from.
This is a marvelous, atmospheric film about Nazis who escape a downed submarine in Canada and seek to make their way to the U.S. On their way, they cause a lot of damage and suffering, stealing and killing to get whatever they want.The name actors who appeared in this took pay cuts - Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Anton Walbrook, and Raymond Massey.
Along the way, they come across situation after situation that challenges the Nazi premise and causes the crew to gradually unravel.The film is really a series of vignettes, each featuring a well-known star at its center -- including Laurence Olivier (hilarious as a French-Canadian trapper), Leslie Howard and Raymond Massey.
In Michael Powell's war thriller, "The 49th Parallel," a small squad of Nazi soldiers is stranded on Canadian soil after their ship is destroyed, so they decide to trek south in order to seek political asylum in the United States (which has not yet entered the war).
In supporting roles, Leslie Howard appears as an art-lover/outdoorsman; a teen-aged Glynis Johns impersonates a Hutterite girl; Niall MacGinnis is the German soldier who falls in love with her; and Raymond Massey has a significant cameo toward the end as a Canadian Army deserter who redeems himself by acting as his country's final representative-catalyst.
Glynnis Johns, Leslie Howard, and Raymond Massey leap out at you when they appear.It would not have been hard to cast the Nazis in an unfavorable light by showing something true and important about them, but the bad behavior the movie portrays - kicking an Eskimo, spouting propaganda at inopportune times, smashing a Picasso painting improbably kept in a teepee, acting the ungrateful guest - seem contrived and trivial compared with the real reasons for going to war.
It has been said about it, that it has such an original end, that you always forget how it was after some years and therefore have to see it again, just to recall that end twist of the tale, which indeed is worth watching the whole film for - it is more than two hours.It's not just Laurence Olivier (a sporty French Canadian here) and Leslie Howard (a camping writer of Indian books, both shot and wounded but probably surviving,) but also Eric Portman in one of his most revolting roles ever (although he made quite a number of dubious characters and murderers), deadly consistent as the leading Nazi officer, Anton Walbrook as his antithesis, delivering one of his eloquent speeches, Glynis Johns as quite young and adorable, Finlay Currie in a typical character of his, Raymond Massey as the only real Canadian in this very Canadian classic of a film, and for once in a rather amusing role, among many other interesting characters.The main asset though is the masterful script by Emeric Pressburger and the impressing music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
A German submarine steals its way into St. Lawrence and continues up to Hudson Bay, where it gets caught, and some of the crew have to try to escape across Canada to get over into US, still neutral at the time.
To avoid internment, they must make their way to the border and get into the still-neutral United States.Said Michael Powell, "I hoped it might scare the pants off the Americans." Screenwriter Emeric Pressburger remarked, "Goebbels considered himself an expert on propaganda, but I thought I'd show him a thing or two." After persuading the British and Canadian governments, Powell started location filming in 1940.Now, how effective the film was in getting America into the war, I don't know.
THE 49th PARALLEL is a rather tedious British war drama involving a Nazi U-boat crew invading Canada after their boat is sunk and encountering various Canadians who are unaware of their real identities.
Among them--LAURENCE OLIVIER (extravagant bit of overacting with a bad French accent), FINLAY CURRIE, ANTON WALBROOK, LESLIE HOWARD and RAYMOND MASSEY.It's the kind of anti-fascism anti-Nazi war propaganda that was churned out so often during World War II and always found an appreciative audience among the allies.
ERIC PORTMAN, ANTON WALBROOK and NIALL MacGINNIS contribute the strongest performances and there's a nice bit by GLYNIS JOHNS as a teen-age girl who turns against the men she initially helps when she realizes they're Nazis out of uniform.Summing up: Nowhere as effective as other British war films of this period, including Noel Coward's IN WHICH WE SERVE..
SYNOPSIS: A shipwrecked U-boat crew hikes across Canada during 1941 in an attempt to make it back to the Fatherland.CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER Differences in ideology and lifestyle are contrasted by a band of Nazis and the down-home plains-folk they encounter as the Germans try and escape across North America.
At the end of the film, the remaining Nazis try to escape into the United States (which had not yet entered the war).
There are more and more points that become apparent after repeated watchings, some story-line, some obviously colonial impressions or expectations from the time, and a lot of propaganda, and all for good reason.Basically the film has 2 roles, first the obvious 'It could happen here' aspect, but also the connotations that illustrate the futility of the entire Nazi effort.
In this film, Leslie Howard, Laurence Oliver and Raymond Massey, took a cut in salary for the War Effort at the time and were proud to be a part of this great film which clearly showed how very sick the Nazi's were and the so called leader of the master race, Adolph Hitler.
Therefore the propaganda is fairly heavy-handed in places and the female characters are not as fully developed as they would be later in their oeuvre.49th Parallel tells the story of 6 Nazis trying to make their way through Canada, and the people and communities they meet during their journey (including French-Canadian rebel Laurence Olivier, with a curious accent; Anton Walbrook and his group of German workers; and Leslie Howard, a cultured pacifist).
One of the more interesting World War II propaganda films, due to outstanding writing (by Emeric Pressburger), direction (by Michael Powell), and performances.
The story involves six Nazis making their way from Hudson Bay (in northeastern Canada) to cross the "49th Parallel" (the United States/Canadian border), after their U-boat (submarine warship) is damaged.
The film is too episodic for its own good - one story, with more focus on Portman's crew, would have sufficed.****** 49th Parallel (10/8/41) Michael Powell ~ Eric Portman, Leslie Howard, Laurence Olivier.
***SPOILERS*** Truly bizarre British war propaganda movie that has a bunch of German sailors stuck in Canada when their U-Boat, U-37, was sunk by the Canadian Air Force in Hudson's Bay. These bumbling "Nazi Supermen" as they like to be called then embark on a mission to cross the length and breath of Canada to Vancover which takes almost the entire length of the movie only to end up in Niagria Falls some 2,200 miles east of Vancover when they were headed for!
This in a country that's in a life and death struggle with Germany and that even saying good things about the Nazi regime can put them,if they were Canadian citizens, behind bars for at least five years or until the end of the war!
Finding a girlfriend Anna, Glynis Jones, and a job as the community baker didn't set well with Vogel's commanding officer Let. Hirth, who had the poor and love sick slub shot at sunrise for his defying his orders.***SPOILERS*** The last 15 or so minutes of the film really starts to get utterly ridicules with the two surviving Nazis Let. Hirth & Lorhmann, John Chawdos, ending up in the Great Pacific North-West in this Indian colony with English Indian expert Philip Armstrong Scott played by a wimpy and effeminate sounding Leslie Howard.
The film is a stinging commentary on Nazism set against a back drop of the ordinary and human endeavours of people in Canada.The story opens with a German U-Boat off Canadian waters.
Their journey to reach the USA, which was still neutral in WW2 at this point, is the main focus of the film and is told in 4 chapters: the pillaging at Hudson Bay; a sojourn at a German Christian community, the Hutterites; on foot going west where they encounter a writer researching the native Amerindians; and finally, a confrontation with a Canadian soldier on board a freight train travelling across Niagara Falls from Canada into the USA.
The 49th Parallel was filmed in the darkest days of World War 2 and intended to be just another propaganda movie that would hopefully influence the (still neutral) USA.
Canada was on Britain's side after all, all Portman had to do was to say something like, " 'ey up lad, I'm not a Nazi but an English gardenin' enthusiast" and I reckon the Canadian authorities themselves would have personally arranged his passage to America with a packed lunch and some pocket money thrown in.Glynis Johns, Lawrence Olivier and Leslie Howard all play great cameo roles as Canadians who's lifestyles have been unaffected by the war, but soon convert to the fight when they realize just what level of scum they are being confronted with and each has a moving speech to drive home to the audience just how horrid they are.The final scene is the most powerful in my opinion.
Powell and Pressburger deliberately made it as a propaganda film, partly to highlight the Canadian contribution to the war effort but also to influence public opinion in the then neutral United States.In 1940 a German U-boat is attacking shipping off the Canadian coast.
The film's plot is how, in trying to get out of the thousands of miles of Canadian territory to the then neutral United States, the Nazis are slowly whittled down one by one in a variety of ways, until the last one (the officer in charge - Eric Portman) is captured at the end.
Powell and Pressburger had wanted to make the film as a propaganda piece about the threat of the Nazis to America, and it is well established for such purpose.
Powell's film follows a group of Nazis (led by the particularly brutal Eric Portman)who find themselves on the run in Canada after an Allied Forces plane destroys their U-Boat.It's propaganda, yet it's a cut above the rest.