Simply Perfect

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Good concept, poorly executed.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This is a long movie for 1943 propaganda. However, it was also a mystery with many characters of interest. Would Dr Swoboda turn himself in? Would Professor Novotny be executed? What would Emil Czaka's fate be? The final message about him provides ironic justice. The locale seemed to be Prague, and there was (unless I missed it) no mention of the destruction of Lidice, so inextricably associated with Heydrich.JB

On 27 May 1942, in Prague, the Deputy Reich-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia "Hangman" Reinhard Heydrich is shot by the resistance member Dr. Franticek Svoboda (Brian Donlevy). After the attempt on Heydrich's life, Nasha Novotny (Anna Lee) gives the wrong runaway direction of Svoboda to the Gestapo agents. When Svoboda sees that he is trapped, he goes to Nasha's apartment seeking shelter and he introduces himself as the architect Karel Vanek. He is welcomed by the patriarch and former revolutionary Professor Stephen Novotny (Walter Brennan) and he spends the night with the family. On the next morning, the Gestapo captures hostages including Professor Novotny to force the population to denounce the assassin. Nasha goes to the St. Pancracio Hospital to seek out the resident surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda and ask him to surrender to the German authorities to protect the hostages. But sooner she learns that the occupation police has no intentions to let the prisoner go and she helps the resistance in the plan to frame the traitor Emil Czaka (Gene Lockhart). "Hangmen Also Die!" is a flawed but entertaining war propaganda film based on a true event, the murder of "Hangman" Reinhard Heydrich. The fictional plot of fight for freedom is engaging and it is interesting since it was filmed in 1943, before the end of the war. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Os Carrascos Também Morrem" ("The Hangmen Also Die")

This fictionalized account of the assassination of the Nazi leader of Czechoslovakia is long and dreary. Lang's most creative period started with "The Woman in the Window" in 1944 and included a number of fine films over the next decade. This once precedes that inspired period and is one of his lesser efforts, not helped by bad acting. Donlevy was an adequate actor for playing heavies, but here he is too stiff and charmless to be playing the lead. Lee, who would go on to become a regular in John Ford films, overacts terribly. Brennan does well, playing Lee's father. O'Keefe is also OK, and would have been a better choice for the Donlevy role.

***SPOILERS*** Somehwhat fictionalized account of the assassination of the Nazi installed Reichsprotector of Bohemia/Moravia SS Obergruppen-Fuhrer Reinhard Heydrick, Hans Henrich Von Twardowski, who was known "affecfinotly" by his subjects, the Czech people, as the notorious "Hangman" Heydrich.Even though he's the major subject of the film we only get to see the "Hangman" once at the very beginning of the movie and what an impression he makes in the few minutes of screen time he has in it! Swaggering around like an obnoxious buffoon Heydrich comes across as someone you wouldn't trust in getting you a container of coffee and buttered roll for breakfast much less running a country- Czechoslovakia-of some 10 million people. It's not that long after being introduced to this shrieking lunatic that he's reported to have been shot by Czech patriots while driving through the streets of Prague in his Mercedes. Trying to flee the scene of the shooting is Heydrich's assassin Czech freedom fighter Dr. Franticek Svoboda, which incidentally means "freedom" in Czech, played by Irish/American actor Brain Donlevey who then makes his way into the nearby Novotny residence to avoid capture. Using the alias of architect Kanel Vanek Dr. Svoboda stays with the Novotny's until the curfew, imposed by the Nazis after the Heydrich assassination, is lifted.We also get to see defiant Pargue Taxi driver Banya, Lionel Stander, who helped Svoboda make his successful getaway getting arrested and later tortured by the Gestapo only to escape by jumping through a shut window in Gestapo headquarters never to be seen or heard from again in the film! It's as if the Gestapo felt it wasn't worth looking for him or else the slippery as an eel Banya somehow made it back to England, where the real life assassins of the "Hangman" came from, and freedom! The rest of the movie has the Nazis out on a rampage arresting jailing and executing Czech's, innocent of the "Hangman's" assassination, by the hundreds until his killer, Dr. Svoboda, gives himself up to them!Pretty accurate account of the Heydrich assassination and its aftermath that tries to be even handed in just how non active most Czech's were in fighting the hated Germans who were occupying their country. We get to see the Czech's slowly start to revolt against the Germans only after they started to indiscriminately arrest torture and execute hundreds of their fellow countrymen for a crime that they, those arrested , didn't commit: The assassination of "Hangman" Reinhard Heydrich! In fact the person who did it-Dr. Svoboda-seem to be totally immune from arrest and tortured by the Gestapo even though they had far more on him then anyone else in their custody!It was the person who helped Dr. Svoboda hide from the Nazis Nasha Novotny, Ann Lee, who was more then willing to turn him over to the Gestapo in that he by being hidden by them put her entire families, headed by her dad Prof. Steve Novotny (Walter Brennan),lives in jeopardy. It's later that Nasha sees the light after almost being lynched by her fellow Czechs, when she tried to go to Gestapo headquarters to report Dr. Svoboda, and actively joins the fight for her country's freedom against the hated Nazis.***SPOILERS*** There's also an interesting side story in the film that has really nothing to do with the dear departed "Hangman" Heydrich that involves Czech traitor Emil Czaka, Gene Lockhart. Czaka had been the Gestapo's inside man in the Czech resistance movement providing them with all the information they needed in who its members are. It was both Dr. Sovboda and Nasha together with her fiancée Jon Horak, Dennis O'Keefe, and dozens of fellow Czech patriots who set the traitorous Czaka up in being the man who whacked "Hangman" Heydrich by manufacturing an air-tight case against him! To finally convince the Gestapo that in fact Czaka did it, assassinate the "Hangman", the only witness who could have saved his rotten neck Gestapo Inspector Alois Gruber, Alexander Granach, not only ended up getting killed, suffocated to death by both Dr. Sovboda & Jan Horak, but his murder was linked to the very man he could have proved innocent of being Heydrch assassin: Emil Czaka!