HOSTAGES, the international conflict variety, are plot basis for this WW2 entry which came out in 1943 among a swarm of war-focused movies. Somehow this one slipped under my radar (primed to spot Messerschmitts or Zeros), one of those surprises that sometimes plays gotcha to your “I thought I’d seen ’em all” conceit. Or at least heard of ’em. Piqued by the cast and a general interest in that particular dust-up, headquarters decided to give it a recon. *

“Once two people know something…it is no longer a secret” (followed by a pistol shot applied to the listener).

Nazi-occupied Prague. When a lovelorn drunken German officer commits suicide, the embarrassment of such an un-Aryan act has the higher-ranking commanders cover by deeming it a murder and then grab 25 hostages from those near the scene. Among them are a resistance agent (William Bendix) posing a simple-minded washroom attendant and a wealthy collaborator (Oscar Homolka) who can’t convince the Huns of his turncoat loyalty to the Reich. Assorted Nazi officers (led by Paul Lukas) have a stake in profiting from the executions, while patriotic Czechs (Luise Rainer, Arturo de Córdova, Katina Paxinou) scheme to try and stop or at least hinder the remorseless firing squads.

“You know Schuler, sometimes I think a man of your intelligence might be very useful on the Eastern Front!”

Boosted by his Oscar nomination for Wake Island, busy Bendix also tackled another branch of the Axis that year via popular rousers Guadalcanal Diary and China; he and Lukas drew the best parts and do well by them. Lukas would take home an Oscar as an anti-Nazi German in Watch On The Rhine, and Greek exile newcomer Paxinou (subdued here) would earn one for her bravura turn in For Whom The Bell Tolls. Homolka’s always dependable.

Otherwise, it’s flatly directed, scenes drag out (97 minutes feels like 120), the chemistry between lovers de Cordoba (a blank slate) and Rainier nonexistent. After her back-to-back Academy Awards for The Great Ziegfield and The Good Earth, Luise Rainer’s draw dipped and she stayed away from films for five years before making this rather half-hearted comeback. At 33, after this she dropped out of the business, not doing another movie role for fifty-four years, in 1997s The Gambler. Arturo de Córdova, 35, was a big star in Mexico and Latin America but just didn’t click in Hollywood; he did a few more leads (notably Frenchman’s Creek) then returned to more receptive Mexico and continued success.

The finale does boast some impressive special effects when the resistance blows up much of the Prague riverfront to spit back at their occupiers and rouse (or wake up) the audience. Best vile Nazi line, said while inspecting a lineup of female ‘comfort’ prisoners: “The tears of a young girl make the salt of the earth.”  Like bacteria, they never really go away, they just change uniforms, languages and locations, shifting from one host to another. They may never be eradicated, but each & every one we can neutralize (don’t be a wuss,  figure it out) makes life a little sweeter.

“We’ll always have…other roles.” Prague’s no ‘Casablanca’. Better beer, though.

Directed by Frank Tuttle (This Gun For Hire), who co-wrote the script with Lester Cole (Objective, Burma!, Born Free). The gross came to $1,800,000, 119th in a year jammed with more than fifty war-related films, some quite good (Sahara, Five Graves To Cairo, This Land Is Mine, to cite a few) including another set in Czechoslovakia, the much better Hangmen Also Die! which did 20% the business of this sincere but unsurprisingly forgotten entry.

With Reinhold Schunzel, Steven Geray, Hans Conreid (a good bit as the officer whose suicide starts the clock ticking), Philip Van Zandt, Ludwig Donath, Jack Lambert, Ivan Triesault.

* Stories about the desperate subjects in occupied countries fighting back were plentiful: this and Hangmen Also Die! shared morale duty with Edge Of Darkness, The Adventures Of Tartu (a fave), This Land Is Mine, The Moon Is Down, First Comes Courage, Hitler’s Madman and The Cross Of Lorraine.