"Die if you must for a cause that is just." It's a line from a poem which becomes a song of defiance, written by a Czech civilian taken hostage by and awaiting execution at the hands of the Nazis. It's also the core mantra for many of the Resistance heroes who face death for the sake of the greater national good.
The plot of Fritz Lang's film, adapted from a story by Bertolt "Bert" Brecht and loosely based on real events, concerns the assassination of the "Hangman of Europe" Reinhard Heydrich (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) in occupied Prague. Naturally the Gestapo are all over the case, but their efforts to nail the assassin are thwarted at every turn by Resistance sympathisers – many of them ordinary folk turned potential betrayers.
The chief inspector is Gruber (Alexander Granach), a bawdy, beer- swilling cop with a nose for sniffing out lies. But the prime suspect, Svoboda (Brian Donlevy), is his intellectual equal, casting a web of deceit that entangles innocent witness Mascha (Anna Lee), whose father is subsequently captured and used as leverage.
Mascha's dilemma is a Sophie's Choice that encapsulates the terrible decision at the heart of all citizens living under oppression: Speak out and her family will be shot; say nothing and only her father dies.
Hangmen Also Die! was made after Lang's emigration from Nazi Germany in the 1930s and before his move into hard noir with Scarlet Street and The Big Heat. It was produced during wartime yet somehow avoids many of the demonising clichés that could potentially turn depictions of the Third Reich into a pantomime of evil (even if some of the performances are a tad broad).
The precision and nuance by which such a complex array of characters is mapped out is remarkable – the stuff of AAA television in our current era. Lang and his co-writers somehow make it all work, with virtually every scene a nail-biting moral or ethical decision, or some devastating revelation. It's the leanness of the narrative, with every word and frame employed to maximum effect, that makes this level of intensity possible.
Special mention should go to the great female roles here, from factory workers to fruit sellers, all taking their punishment for their part in the Resistance effort. Mascha in particular could have been a hysterical wuss, but she's as calm, capable, and principled as the men plotting each other's doom. She never asked for this – yet she's the one making the sacrifice regardless.
The mix of political intrigue, melodrama, and hard-boiled noir may not sit comfortably in many minds but on screen it's a masterful balancing act. Just as with M, Lang dares to paint his subjects in shades of grey (the Resistance fighters are no more pure of heart than the Gestapo police are pure evil), and the results are utterly engrossing and grimly plausible. If you've seen Lang's big-hitters, it's time to try out this lesser-known little classic.
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