Hitler: Last 10 Days (1973)
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List Price: $7.99
Features
• Color
• NTSC
In Theaters : 09 May, 1973
Video Release : 01 September, 1998 |
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Hitler: Last 10 Days (1973) Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
NOT UP TO THE STANDARD OF DOWNFALL BUT PRODUCED 30 YEARS EARLIER
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IN A NUTSHELL: THE STORY OF THE FINAL DEMISE OF HITLER & HIS EMPIRE
"Hitler: Last 10 Days", featuring Alec Guinness in the lead as Adolf Hitler, is an historicially-significant although flawed attempt to recapture the essence of the final disposition of Hilter and his Third Reich.
Alec Guinness plays Adolf Hitler as a suffering introvert motivated by a combination of maniac antagonistic intensity and withdrawn somber resignation. Guinness portrays Hitler with strongly-emotional, often-histrionic displays of both sorrow and contempt toward the German people, almost simultaneously. This is very well done in that Guinness does reveal the broken and tortured mind of the former proud leader of the great German Reich. In essence, Germany's external destruction seems to be going on internally with what is left of Hitler's presence of mind.
WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT: WORST TRAVEL DESTINATION OF APRIL 1945 - CENTRAL BERLIN
From its set, which was almost entirely inside Hitler's Berlin bunker, 'Hitler: Last 10 Days' attempts to narrate a kind of historic journal for posterity to depict the dying days of Hitler and his Third Reich as the Russian army comes ever closer to his underground lair in central Berlin.
In this dark underground setting, Hitler is portrayed as a broken leader attached to a sorrowful band of followers whose former imperial swagger has literally turned into a sort of collective drunken stagger. Hitler, it seems, is the only sober one in the bunker, but he has obviously found his escape within his collapsing sanity. The film utilizes a series of vignettes that are strung together to make this immense subject with dozens of players fit into a feature-length film, in English, for a general, moviegoing audience. Obviously this limits the scope of the project. Here are some examples of the scenes:
Hitler summons the new head of the defunct Luftwaffe [Eric Porter as Gen. Von Greim] to Berlin to be promoted to Field Marshall, only to have what was left of the Luftwaffe destroyed trying to escort the new Field Marshall to Berlin for the meeting and tea. Of course, Hitler's tailor made Von Greim a Field Marshall's uniform with which for him to return to his empty post. Of course, this tale is essentially true and is included in other books and films about this epic historic moment. The sense of proportion is the only thing I would question here as other chronicles of this event seem to give the 'Luftwaffe Debacle' relatively little importance in the grand scheme of the last days. It does, however, demonstrate that the once-sharp mind of the leader of the Third Reich was not functioning rationally.
Another scene, which also shows up in other films and literature, is what happens when Hitler finds out that there was NO COUNTER-OFFENSIVE, which was to have been led by Steiner, against the Soviet forces. In this scene, we can see most clearly the flaws in the film, whereby certain literary licenses are taken for the sake of dramatization during Hitler's 'public/private' reaction to this "betrayal" by the General Staff. It is very well done by Guinness as Hitler, but it is a bit theatrical, even for Adolf Hitler. The film 'Downfall' depicts the scene rather poignantly and probably closer to what really happened. To be specific, in the film, Hitler portrayed by Guinness promised to have the chiefs of the German General staff 'Drawn and Quartered' and to have them 'Drowned in their own blood', and much more, while in a closed-door session that everyone could hear despite the cataclysmic cacophony that was always in the bunker's background.
Lastly, the scene depicting Hitler having an argument that compelled Eva Braun to take poison during Hitler's final madman-monologue while he was cursing at her is a bit too much. The coup de grace shortly followed as Hitler, staring at Eva's suddenly lifeless body shouts, "YOU HAVE BETRAYED ME" before shooting himself.
BOTTOM LINE: NOT A PERFECT FILM BUT WHAT ELSE WAS THERE IN 1973 ON THE SUBJECT
Though this was made to be as accurate as possible, time and careful analysis has shown that some of what we see in this film is somewhat fictionalized, but the bulk of what is depicted is shown rather well. One must bear in mind that this film was released in 1973 when accurate depictions of the end of Hitler and the Third Reich were only known to scholars and prosecutors. The rest of us were given "The 3 Stooges," "Charlie Chaplin," and "The Marx Brothers" to come to terms with Hitler and his cartoonish cronies which served to further deepen the myth of Hitler the Caricature. Only with the more recent releases of groundbreaking films such as "Downfall" and "Inside the Third Reich" do we clearly see this film's shortcomings. In other words, "Hitler: Last 10 Days" was, at the time of its release, a rather revolutionary film and was the first of several better films and books that followed. For all the aforementioned reasons this is a film worth watching, but it is best to be somewhat familiar with the subject before viewing. |
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