Man Hunt (1941)   Starring: Walter Pidgeon and Joan Bennett Optimum Home Entertainment RRP: £15.99 OPTD2051 Certificate: PG Available 31 January 2011

Richard Thorndike is an aristocrat, vacationing in Bavaria. His love of the hunt brings him to hunting the greatest prey, another man. In this case Richard gets his cross hairs firmly fixed on Hitler, but hesitates long enough to be captured, beaten and nearly killed. Escaping to England Richard discovers that the Nazi’s remain on his tail and he literally has to go underground to survive. Now the hunted, Richard contemplated whether he really would have pulled the trigger…

Man Hunt (1941 - 1 hr, 38 min, 14 sec) is a thriller directed by Fritz Lang from an original novel by Geoffrey Household (Rogue Male, 1939), adapted for the screen by Dudley Nichols.

It’s a bit of an oddity that I remember borrowing the original novel from the school library, when I was about twelve. Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) is part of that tradition of dashing heroes, who think nothing of righting the odd wrong, a real bastion of empire.

That he never hesitates to think about what it might mean to kill another human being, even one as twisted as Hitler, is in no small part to both the propaganda value of the film as well as Lang’s own distaste for the Nazi regime, which he fled, leaving his wife - who had become an ardent fan of Hitler - behind. I don’t think the invite for an interview with Goebbels helped either. So, don’t expect the argument about assassination to be anything other than one sided, but then this a film that is very much a product of its time.

The film is bookended with Thorndike’s idea of killing Hitler. In the first instance, prior to his capture, it is played out almost like a game and in fact his decision to place a bullet in the chamber is shown as a casual afterthought. Only the main events of the film and the hardships he has to endure concentrate his resolve to go back to the same hunt, but this time with the intent of killing his prey.

In truth, this is not one of Lang’s greatest films, partly out of the necessity of producing films which also worked as propaganda, but also because it was not a project which he himself originated. That is not to say that the film isn’t shot with Lang’s usual geometric flair and let’s face it Lang’s worst is still better than some other directors best.

The disc contains a solitary trailer (1 min, 47 sec) by way of an extra. The audio is 2.0 and the picture is surprisingly immaculate for its age.

If you haven’t caught this film before it’s worth checking out. For all it’s historically based faults its still the product of a master film maker.

8

Charles Packer