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")

Although 'Hangmen Also Die!' is interesting for its subject, which is enough to make anybody feel unsettled even those not easily so, my main interest point was the cast. Have in particular always thought most highly of Walter Brennan and Gene Lockhart, both of whom were great in other things. On paper, it did sound like the film would be a powerful and quite scary one, though there was potential for suspension of disbelief being needed.

'Hangmen Also Die!' is indeed a quite powerful film that was pretty brave for back then, way back when this particular reign of terror was at its peak. It is not a great film perhaps and is not for all, but it was one that stayed with me for some time after and made me think. Have a lot of admiration for Fritz Lang, with 'Metropolis' and 'M' being influential masterpieces, and while this is not one of his best films it hardly disgraces him, actually think it is one of his more interesting not-as-famous films Those that expect complete historical accuracy are best looking elsewhere and one is going to have a hard time believing Brennan and other cast members as Czechs, but there is still an awful lot to like about 'Hangmen Also Die!' and its staying power is definitely there.

Brian Donlevy is very wooden and never looks comfortable in his role, which is something of a big problem, and Alexander Granach overdoes it in his (one easy to overact and had real potential to, and it falls into that trap).

Maybe the film runs on for a little too long (making for some draggy stretches in the middle) and had more clarity in the storytelling, as it is sometimes over-complicated.

On the other hand, 'Hangmen Also Die!' is stylishly photographed, and it is both quite beautiful and full of atmosphere, and making an even bigger impression visually is the noir-ish lighting that is really quite eerie and enhances the frightening nature of the story. Hans Eisler's music score also enhances the unsettlement without over-doing it. Lang's direction is more than accomplished and he shows himself to be not just more than up to the job but the perfect director for it also. The script is taut enough and always intrigues, while the story mostly is compelling, quite tense and a real risk was taken making a film with such a damning and frightening account of what was happening at the time and without trivialising. Lockhart's subplot is especially gripping while the film began on a quite terrifying note.

Excepting Donlevy and Granach, the acting was fine. Lockhart in particular was riveting and a close second and third were Anna Lee, who really brightens up the screen, and Brennan, in a type of role that suited him to the ground and he plays it with a curmudgeonly charm and intensity (even if accepting him as a Czech is going to take a lot of time). Hans Heinrich von Twardowski is quite unnerving as Heydrich.

Concluding, not a great film but an interesting and well done one. 7/10

Quite a few Nazi exiles were involved with Hangman Also Die, a project that even if hardly true is many cuts above the typical wartime propaganda flick. Director Fritz Lang, writer Berthold Brecht and many in the cast knew the Nazi mentality well and what it was like to live under them. They had the intelligence and foresight to leave while the getting out was good.

We in America knew about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, but scarce few details before the war was over. Lang and Brecht created an apocryphal tale of what should have happened. Hangman Also Die is one intricately plotted affair, a lot more than you would see it in a film of this type in wartime America.

Hans Heinrich Von Twardowski is on ever so briefly as Heydrich in the beginning. His performance reminded me of Christopher Plummer as Commodus in The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. Heydrich was far from the colorful character he's portrayed here in real life. This was a man who could go home to the wife and kids, home and hearth after a day's gassing at Auschwitz. Still Twardowski is memorable if not true to life.

We never see the actual shooting. We do see Brian Donlevy who is a doctor as well as an assassin fleeing the scene of the attack and Anna Lee misdirecting the pursuing Nazis just by patriotic instinct. The Nazi response is swift and brutal. They start shooting chosen hostages one of them being Anna Lee's father university professor Walter Brennan.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at Brennan here who gave a well thought out and restrained performance. In the North Star I thought he was out of place as a Russian peasant. I was expecting the same, but it was nice not to have expectations lived up to.

The whole film is about a collective crisis of conscience for the Czech people. What do we do about this assassin, do we hide him, support him, or do we turn him in hopes that hostage shooting will cease? In the meantime the Gestapo presses on with the investigation.

Gene Lockhart is also in the cast as a collaborator. His exposure as one is one of the best scenes in the film. Lockhart played many roles like this in his film career, but he was absolutely at his best in a part he honed to perfection.

It should have happened this way in real life. The way the Gestapo closes the books on the Heydrich case is really well done. All I can say is that Brecht and Lang play on the characteristics of the Nazis, most of all their paranoia. Intricately plotted and executed beautifully by Fritz Lang and his cast.