I saw the movie just before going into service, little dreaming that I would see Gen. Draja Mihailovich in person. It is an excellent movie, well acted. I volunteered with the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and parachuted into Mihailovich territory to rescue airmen shot down bombing the oilfields of Ploesti. The mission was called Operation Halyard and is depicted in the book, The Forgotten 500. The movie is an excellent depiction of the Serbs resistance to the German invasion. It has been a long time since I saw the movie and I have forgotten much of it, but, if you like adventure and romance, it has both. Today, there is much controversy surrounding Mihailoich, and this is an excellent source to get one viewpoint.
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ajibilian4 January 2010
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gordonl566 June 2015Chetniks :The Fighting Guerrillas : 1943
This Twentieth Century Fox production from 1943 is the story of Serbian Colonel, Draja Mihailovitch. Mihailovitch was an officer in the Royal Yugoslav Army. He refused to surrender after the country was gobbled up by the German attack in the spring of 1941. He retreated to the Serbian hills and started a guerrilla campaign against the occupying German and Italian forces.
The film shows Mihailovitch as an inspiring leader who masterfully beats the Germans, in between stopping here and there to give patriotic speeches. The lead is played by Philip Dorn with support by Anna Sten, as his wife, while Sheppard Strudwick, Frank Lackteen and LeRoy Mason are his trusty lieutenants. The Germans are played by Felix Basch and the always entertaining, Martin Kosleck.
The film follows Dorn as he plays a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the Germans, always staying one foot ahead of them. That is till the Axis manage to get their paws on his wife, Sten and his two young children, Patricia Prest and Merrill Rodin. Gestapo type, Kosleck of course takes great delight in taunting Dorn with this bit of info.
Kosleck tells Dorn he intends to slaughter every man, woman and child in a town if Dorn does not turn himself in. This of course includes killing Dorn's flesh and blood.
Dorn agrees to the exchange but of course has other plans. He fools the Germans into believing that his forces have scattered to the hills. The German quickly set off in pursuit, intending to wipe them out. Needless to say it is really a trap by the partisans to do in the Germans. At the same time, Dorn has led another group to the town in order to save the townsfolk. The guerrillas overrun the Germans, free the people and put paid to the Gestapo swine, Kosleck.
This one has its moments, with several well mounted battle scenes, but as a whole, there is a tad too much flag waving. The acting is OK, though Dorn is a bit more stoic than he needed to be. Kosleck of course steals the show as the evil Nazi.
Look close and you will catch future HOGAN'S HEROES, star, John Banner, in a brief uncredited bit as a Gestapo man. Pretty Virginia Gilmore has a decent role here as a spy for the Chetniks. The soon to be Mrs. Yul Brynner would soon be relegated to secondary roles and early television productions.
The film did decent box office when released in 1943. It was yanked out of circulation fairly quickly in 1946. Mihailovitch had been arrested, tried and executed for war crimes by Marshal Tito's Communist regime. It seems that the Chetniks had been up to a bit of ethnic cleansing against the local Croats and Muslims. Tito was also not amused that the Chetniks had clashed with the Communist groups during the war.
Mihailovitch's men did help numerous downed Allied airmen escape back to the west. But even the British had yanked their help from the group by the end of 1944. Some claim he was framed, but most historians seem to think he was not quite the knight in shining armor this film suggests.
The film was helmed by b-unit man, Louis King. King's best films are likely, POWDER RIVER, TYPHOON and THUNDERHEAD- SON OF FLICKA. He also directed several BULLDOG DRUMMOND films and a CHARLIE CHAN flick.
The look of the film is quite good, with one time Oscar nominated, Glen MacWilliams handling the cinematography duties. MacWilliams received his Oscar nod for lensing Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT the following year. -
SimonJack10 February 2019The acting and directing of "The Fighting Guerrillas" is good. The script seems choppy in places, and the editing appears a little sloppy. Otherwise, the camera work and production values are good. The story is a good one and the film was well received in early 1943. No doubt, it was a morale booster on the home front. But, I doubt there is a high quality print of this film available anywhere. While it's still shown from time to time, it's not a prize example of Hollywood work. That's because it has a huge flaw. This film glosses over and whitewashes a chunk of history and the people within it. From that standpoint, it now has some historical value as an example of a propaganda film. But not an honest propaganda film.
Most of the early Allied feature films made during World War II were meant to help build morale, especially among the people on the home front. Some were dramas, some were comedies, and a few were about spying and underground resistance. The combat films with battle scenes and special missions came toward the end of the war and during the decades after.
All of the British and American studios got involved. By 1943, Hollywood had made some fine films. Some were based on novels. Most were fictional. Most of those about resistance and underground had to be general and not give away real information. The best of the 1942 films was MGM's "Mrs. Miniver" that won six Oscars. Warner Brothers made "Across the Pacific" and Columbia made "Atlantic Convoy." Other top films that year were Universal's "Eagle Squadron" and Republic's "Flying Tigers." The best wartime film of all time is Warner's "Casablanca." It premiered in November and then was widely released in January 1943.
Twentieth Century Fox made a number of good films as well. This one, "The Fighting Guerrillas," came out in early 1943. It was the first to show organized armed resistance in any country to Nazi Germany. Fox filmed it in California. It was about Draza Mihailovic who led the Chetniks. They were Serbian Army units that fought as guerrillas after Yugoslavia surrendered. It had first sided with Germany.
The film greatly glosses over the Chetniks and the war in the Balkans of Yugoslavia. Mihailovic is shown as a hero who took on the Nazis. Yet, the Chetniks mostly fought against the Italian Axis units. And, by the fall of 1941, the Chetniks were capturing Partisans and turning thousands of them over to the Nazis. The Partisans were communists led by Josip Tito.
Yugoslavia and the Balkans have a complex history. Several ethnic groups make up the region. The bulk of the population are civilians. But groups within each faction have fought one another for more than a century. The Chetniks were mostly Serbs. The Ustase was a radical fascist group within Croatia. The Bosniaks were mostly Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina. And the Partisans were armed and organized communists from across the region. Some of the smaller groups were aligned with these factions. Most of them committed war crimes. They killed large numbers of civilians - women and children among them.
Of course, the movie doesn't show this. But a more modern movie has been made that gives one a good idea of the hostility of the ethnic factions toward one another. "Savior" of 1998 was made about the wars in the Balkans after the fall of the Iron Curtain and breakup of Yugoslavia in 1990. It shows the inhumanity and savagery between the hostile factions of the Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats.
Space doesn't allow for more discussion of the complex Balkans and history of Yugoslavia. But, many photos and historical records attest to the war crimes on all sides. At the end of the war, the communist government of Josip Tito tried and executed Mihailovic for war crimes. Mihailovic is still celebrated as a hero in some quarters, even well into the 21st century. -
mark.waltz30 December 2023This time, it's Yugoslavia, and Serb rebel leaders are hiding in the mountains waiting for the right time to make their move. For secretary to Nazi officer (once again Martin Kosleck), the beautiful Virginia Gilmore gets information to Anna Sten, wife of Philip Dorn, one of the leaders. Freedom comes at a price in times like this, and the Serbs are willing to give their lives for that cost if the Nazis are destroyed. They are presented here as absolutely vile, including a female Nazi schoolteacher (who claims to be a child psychologist), going to Kosleck when she discovers a child whom she believes to be the son of one of the leaders.
Based on a true story and made quickly after it occurred to dramatize to English speaking audiences the horrors of the Hitler regime, this focuses more on the human element of horror and sacrifice rather than the spectacle. Sten, Dorn, Shepperd Strudwick and Nestor Paiva are among those in the resistance, completely stone faced in their performances with the exception of a few emotional rises in their voice. Gilmore gets to be a bit more colorful. Kosleck as usual is a strong villain, portraying the complete belief in his mission to see his own soulless nature, and that's scarier than any movie monster. This builds in emotion just like other resistance films, and is good, although my favorite still remains "Edge of Darkness". -
milosdimic25 July 2010This is a story about a man, who ran the first resistance in Europe. A man that later on will be deserted by all of his allies because he had put national interest before any other. True Serbian hero, fighting and dying for his country and democratic cause. Yes, he was fighting against Communists, Nazis and Ustashe (croatians who performed the most monstrous genocide against Serbians). He did fought together with Italians in Dalmatia to protect Serbian population, but never on the same side with Germans. There were some divisions of Chetniks that did fight along with Germans but they were not under his command (Kosta Pecanac). During the II WW, he received a medal from president Truman for his "fight for democratic cause and freedom". After the war, because of the political games run by Soviets and English, his movement lost the support from the allies and he was left alone to fight against the enemies. His movement saved from certain death so many American airmen, and they wanted to save him, realizing that he would get murdered but he refused saying :"This is my country, i would die in my country". Anyway, president of the USA and survived American pilots did not forget him building a monument in his honor after the war.
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s-grasic9 March 2023In the Second World War, Colonel Dragoljub Mihailovic did form a Chetnik movement for a guerrilla war against the Germans, but that movement very quickly became treacherous due to opposing conceptions of resistance and an ideological split with the partisans.
On 19 September 1941, Mihailovic met with Josip Broz Tito in the village of Struganik to discuss an alliance between the Partisans and the Chetniks, but the negotiations failed due to major differences in the goals of their movements. Tito advocated a broad joint offensive, while Mihailovic believed that the uprising was dangerous and started too soon and was afraid that it would trigger major reprisals. Tito and Mihailovic met again on 27 October 1941 in the village of Brajici near Ravna Gora to try once more to reach an agreement, but they agreed only on secondary issues. Immediately after the meeting, Mihailovic began preparations for an attack on the partisans, but he postponed it only because of a lack of weapons. Mihailovic told the Yugoslan Government in Exile that the capture of Uzice, where the weapons factory was located, was necessary to prevent the strengthening of the communists. Through his representative in Belgrade, Colonel Branislav Pantic, on 28 October 1941, Mihailovic contacted the president of the treacherous government, General Milan Nedic, and the next day with the German officer Josef Matl, with an offer to fight together against the partisans in exchange for weapons. This offer was conveyed to General Franz Böhme, the head of the Military Administration in Serbia, and the Germans offered a meeting for November 3rd 1941. In the meantime, the Chetniks attacked the partisans in Uzice, Ivanjica, Cacak, Gornji Milanovac and other places of free territory, the first in the enslaved Europe at the time, on the night between 31 October and 1 November 1941, but they were repulsed. Then, in the village of Slovac, about 350 partisans captured by the Chetniks were handed over to the Germans. This attack started the civil war in Serbia. Because of this, on November 3, 1941, Mihailovic postponed the meeting with the German officers until 11 November 1941. At the meeting in the village of Divci, which was led by Mihailovic and lieutenant colonel Rudolf Kogard, Mihailovic assured the Germans that his intention "was not to fight against the occupiers" and that "he never made a sincere agreement with the communists, because they do not care about the people. They are led by foreigners who are not Serbs..." giving the Germans incorrect information. At the meeting, Mihailovic proposed that the Germans help him in his fight against the partisans and that this cooperation remain hidden from the Serbian people, but the agreement was not reached because the Germans demanded the complete surrender of the Chetniks and believed that the Chetniks would attack them despite Mihailovic's offer.
Mihailovic carefully hid the negotiations with the Germans from the Yugoslav Government in Exile, as well as from the British and their representative Duane Tyrell Hudson, who was in Mijalovic's military staff at the time of the meeting in Divci. Having failed to defeat the Chetniks, faced with reports that the British considered Mihailovic to be the leader of the resistance and under pressure from the German offensive, Tito once again offered negotiations to Mihailovic, which led to negotiations and a subsequent armistice on 20 or 21 November 1941. Tito and Mihailovic had their last telephone conversation on 28 November 1941. Tito declared that he would defend himself against the Germans, while Mihailovic declared that he would hide.
With Mihailovic's approval, the commanders of his detachments decided on November 20 to join the legalized Chetniks under the command of General Nedic, in order to be able to fight against the partisans without fear of the Germans and to avoid compromising Mihailovic in the eyes of the British. About 2,000 to 3,000 Chetniks joined the army of Nedic's regime. Legalization enabled the Chetniks to receive a salary and alibi from the Quisling government, while Nedic received more soldiers to fight against the communists under the command of the Germans.
Apart from that, all the films in which the original languages, related to the place and time of the event, are not used, in this case Serbian-Croatian and German, are worthless regardless of their artistic achievement. -
carlsavich7 February 2008On January 11, 1943, Twentieth Century Fox released the movie Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas on the Serbian guerrilla movement headed by Draza Mihailovich in German-occupied Yugoslavia. The movie was a box office and critical success, starring Philip Dorn as Draza Mihailovich and Anna Sten as his wife. The movie was the Hollywood chronicle of the Chetnik resistance movement.
Draza Mihailovich launched a resistance movement against the Nazi occupation forces of Yugoslavia in 1941. This was unprecedented and created a sensation in Europe and in America. In America, Draza Mihailovich became one of the most popular figures in the news. In the May 25, 1942 issue of Time Magazine, Mihailovich was on the cover under the heading, "Mihailovich: Yugoslavia's Unconquered." He was one of the major contenders for the title of Time's Man of the Year.
As a result, in 1942, a Hollywood movie was made by a major studio, Twentieth-Century Fox, called Chetniks!—The Fighting Guerrillas which portrayed Draza Mihailovich and his forces as allies of the US. The film starred Dutch-born Philip Dorn as Draza Mihailovich. He played Papa Lars Hanson in the 1948 classic I Remember Mama, nominated for 5 Academy Awards. Russian-born Anna Sten, Samuel Goldwyn's answer to Greta Garbo, was his wife, Lubitca Mihailovitch. The movie was produced by Bryan Foy and Sol M. Wurtzel, who had been one of the top executives at William Fox's studio.
The movie was directed by Louis King, a director best known for directing the My Friend Flicka sequels in the 1940s, Thunderhead—Son of Flicka (1945) and Green Grass of Wyoming (1948), which received an Academy Award nomination, the Bulldog Drummond series of films, Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935) with Warner Oland and Rita Hayworth, and a series of low budget B westerns in the 1920s and early 1930s, the most notable of which were made at Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America movie studio (FBO) in the 1920s.
The screenplay was written by Jack Andrews and Edward E. Paramore, Jr., based on the original story by Andrews. The movie was well-written, based on the facts of Draza Mihailovich's life. Andrews and Paramore are able to capture what motivates Mihailovich in the following dialogue from the movie:
Lubitca Mihailovitch: The Germans say, "It is only a matter of time until we catch you!"
Draja Mihailovitch: You don't believe that, do you?
Lubitca: They're strong. They have so much.
Draja: Yes, but we are stronger because we have something they never had: The will to be free. You see, our people don't like to be conquered. So they never will be.
The film opens with a statement that the film is dedicated to Draza Mihailovich and the Serbian Chetnik guerrillas. In the opening scene, German bombers attack Yugoslavia and bomb Belgrade in 1941. German tanks and armored vehicles are shown invading and occupying Yugoslavia. Then Chetnik guerrillas are shown attacking German occupation troops and resisting the occupation by sabotage. A German officer who predicts an easy occupation and imminent conquest of Yugoslavia is shown being shot by Chetnik guerrillas.
The movie takes place in the mountainous coastal city of Kotor in Montenegro. Draza Mihailovich and his Chetnik guerrillas are able to ambush and capture Italian occupation troops and officers. Mihailovich is portrayed as a real-life Zorro, who is able to outwit the Nazi war machine. A Gestapo officer, Col. Brockner, played by Martin Kosleck, is able to discover the identity of Mihailovich's two children, Mirko and Nada, and his wife, Lubitca. German forces then take them into custody to extort Mihailovich to surrender. The original musical score was by Hugo W. Friedhofer, who won the Academy Award for Best Musical Score for the classic World War II movie The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Friedhofer had also been the musical arranger on Casablanca and Now, Voyager in 1942. The cinematography was by Glen MacWilliams. The film editing was by Alfred Day.
The New York Times reviewed the movie favorably on March 19, 1943 after it was shown in New York at the Globe in a review by "T.M.P." (Thomas M. Pryor). The New York Times called the movie "splendidly acted" and that it had "the right spirit". Hal Erickson of All Movie Guide (AMG) reviewed the movie favorably as well, noting how Mihailovich was vindicated. Erickson wrote that the movie portrayed Mihailovich as "a selfless idealist, leading his resistance troops, known as the Chetniks, on one raid after another against the Germans during WWII."
Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas was reviewed positively in the Los Angeles entertainment trade paper The Hollywood Reporter when released in 1943: "Seldom has Hollywood given attention to a motion picture that offered more stirring material than this first feature about a living military hero of World War II."
In a review in the Chicago Daily Tribune on April 1, 1943, "Chetniks' Story Is Dramatically Told in Movie 'CHETNIKS'", Mae Tinee wrote: "This is a fiercely satisfying picture. We all know about the Chetniks, fighting guerrillas of JugoSlavia. We devour every word we can find to read about them--and a lot of us dream of them.... Now comes the movie ..."
The film remains unavailable on DVD in the US in large part because the role of Mihailovich in World War II was rewritten and revised and falsified after the war. The movie is no longer politically correct.
Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas documents and dramatizes a remarkable and unique moment in the history of World War II. It captures a special moment in time. This is a movie that deserves to be recognized as an important film of World War II. -
Oh dear god. What Chehoslovakia!!?? Movie is about Yugoslavian history. I must first find him to tell something more about movie since I haven't look him. If you want to know more about Draza Mihajlovic the lieder of Serbian old army (by the way, they fight with Germans against Tito and partisans) go and search internet, You will learn much. Till the day now in Serbia is big 'talking' about who he was. Traitor or Hero. The big sorrow fact of this kind of Yugoslavian history is that it was civil war against Draza army and partisans in the same time when WWII had played on this territory. Imagine this. Family with two brothers, one brother go to Tito army, other go to Draza army. And they becomes enemies!?