Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 12-July-09
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Man Hunt (1941)

Whatever impact the opening scene of Man Hunt made in 1941, I'll wager it packs even more punch today. The scene shows leading man Walter Pidgeon lying under a bush atop a cliff training a long-range rifle on Adolf Hitler. He has a clear shot and slowly pulls the trigger. For some reason, his rifle is not loaded. He loads it and aims again, and is leapt on by a Nazi guard.

Oh, the possibilities. When director Fritz Lang delivered Man Hunt (set in 1939 and based on a popular book published that year), the full atrocities of the Third Reich were not yet widely known. Nowadays the prospect of Hitler's assassination seems all the more tantalizing. What if the bastard had bought the farm before World War II began?

The movie hops about in tone and theme after the initial shock but remains gripping throughout. Brought before a courtly but vicious Nazi commander (George Sanders), Pidgeon explains that he is a world-famous hunter interested in Hitler for sport with no intention of actual assassination. The Führer is, after all, the most closely guarded man on the planet and tracking him in Germany is a challenge to those who pursue big game. The Nazi buys this but views the Englishman's capture as a means of promoting the coming war. He asks Pidgeon to sign a statement that he had attempted to kill Hitler under orders from the British government. Upon refusing, Pidgeon is tortured and sent to his death but miraculously escapes. The hunt is on.

Aided by a friendly cabin boy (Roddy McDowell), Pidgeon returns home as a stowaway on a Dutch ship and immediately discovers that he has been pursued. His Nazi tail is played by John Carradine, an obvious casting choice since Lang has an eye for fascinating faces. While making himself scarce, Pidgeon solicits the aid of a woman of low breeding (Joan Bennett, who brings sweetness and an awful Cockney accent to the role). She follows him around like a puppy after an initial bout of suspicion. She has never met a gentleman before, and Pidgeon roundly fits the term being both well mannered and born of a noble family. In fact, his brother is the ambassador to Germany.

Pidgeon and Bennett spend a couple of days eluding capture and planning his long-term getaway, but romance is not in the cards. Lang craftily uses a prop to convey that the story is concerned with arrows rather than hearts. He then reuses the prop in the showdown between Pidgeon and Sanders, newly arrived to finish the job he botched in Germany. The ending is a satisfying battle between adversaries and a none-too-subtle bit of propaganda. Man Hunt states with force that no nation, least of all Britain, should have taken Hitler lightly and that the only sensible response to his existence is assassination. Viewed thusly, Bennett serves as a reminder of the common folk who require protection from oppression, while Pidgeon is the sort of proud, able man on whose shoulders this responsibility lies.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.