Hitler -- Beast of Berlin (1939)
Directed by Sherman Scott
Genres - Drama, War |
Sub-Genres - Political Drama, Propaganda Film, War Drama |
Release Date - Oct 7, 1939 (USA - Unknown), Oct 7, 1939 (USA) |
Run Time - 87 min. |
Countries - United States |
MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Also known as Beasts of Berlin and Hitler: Beast of Berlin, this was the inagural effort of Producers Distributing Corporation-later to become famous (or infamous) as PRC Pictures. Set in Germany, the story concerned a dedicated group of anti-Nazis devoted to circulating propaganda literature. The leaders of the group are Roland Drew and his wife Steffi Duna. After a terrifying sojourn in a concentration camp, hero and heroine are smuggled into Switzerland so that they may carry on their work in the Free World. Based on the novel Goose Step by Shepard Traube, this little quickie was among the earliest American films to cast Nazi Germany in a villainous light. That it wasn't the best hardly mattered to the various Bundists in the US, who lobbied to have the film banned. Billed fourth in Beast of Berlin was young Alan Ladd, who was advertised as the film's star when it was reissued in the early 1940s as Hell's Devils.
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Keywords
concentration-camp, against-all-odds, bad-guy, behind-enemy-lines, captive, captor, courage, cruelty, escape, Germany, good-guy, inhumanity, oppression, peril, regime, Reich, reign, resistance, survivor, Third-Reich, truth, underground [counterculture], war
