Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Dramatization regarding Lidice, Czechoslovakia and its fate following the death of Heydrich, Nazi-protector of the city.We find agricultural people, many of whom are apolitical and willing to lead their lives under Nazi rule.One man who had gone to England returns with others and their goals are for sabotage.John Carradine, as Heydrich, is the ruthless, outrageous leader who is willing to do anything to maintain strict order and control.One of the towns leading citizens shows his contempt when a priest is shot down during a town festival for violating group gatherings.Carradine, in his dying words, is not exactly flattering to the Nazi cause, but Himmler uses his assassination to speak of unspeakable horrors which befell the citizens of Lidice.The tension is constant as a people show their determination to show right from wrong in society.

HITLER'S MADMAN 1943This Producer's Releasing Corporation production is one of several put out by various studios dealing with the assassination of Nazi bigwig, Reinhard Heydrich.The film is also the first film made in Hollywood by future hit-maker, Douglas Sirk.It is June 1942, and the British parachute several Czech agents into their homeland to stir up trouble. They want the locals to sabotage the massive munitions and armaments factories situated throughout Czechoslovakia. The Czechs had ended up with quite a few heavy industries after the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.Needless to say the Nazi types are not amused with this idea. Hostages are taken and the slightest whisper of dissent brings swift action by the Gestapo. In charge of the country, is the highly efficient, Heydrich. Heydrich is played here with particular glee by a blonde haired John Carradine. A perfect Nazi swine is Carradine , he smiles while signing death warrants , while at the same time he picks out young girls to serve as "comfort" girls for the troops on the Eastern Front.The main leads here are Alan Curtis as the Czech agent, and his girl, Patricia Morrison. Also in the mix are, Edgar Kennedy, Jimmy Conlin and Alan Shean. At first the locals are reluctant to rise up against the Nazi types. That changes after Carradine has the local priest shot, and grabs up several of the village girls.Heydrich is then bushwhacked on a forest road and badly wounded. He lingers on in hospital for several days before dying in agony. The Germans of course retaliate and round up the village women, shoot all the men, then raze the village, (Lidice) to the ground.The story plays fast and loose with the actual facts of the event. But so what, it is meant to be a flag-waver, and as such it works. Most war films produced at the height of the conflict had gobs of anti-Axis propaganda.MGM was so impressed with the film, that they bought the finished product from PRC and released it themselves. Needless to say the film turned a profit.The director, Douglas Sirk, was a German Ex-pat who escaped Germany in 1939 and came to Hollywood. By the 1950's he was turning out big money earners like, WRITTEN ON THE WIND, ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, IMITATION OF LIFE and ALL I DESIRE. He also scored with an earlier series of film noir productions such as, LURED, SLEEP MY LOVE and SHOCKPROOF.Look close and you will see a 21 year old Ava Gardner in an unbilled bit.

This film is starts with a deceptive title. Reinhart Heydrich was many things, but mad as in clinically insane was not one of them. In fact among his peers he was known as the man with an 'iron heart'. Cold blooded efficiency in some of the nastiest butchery ever seen on this planet was his stock in trade.And John Carradine played him that way. In many ways Heydrich was the archetype Aryan superman that Hitler lauded, but this guy scared Hitler and all the other top Nazis.MGM made this film and even though it is a quickie B picture hurriedly put together to take advantage of current events of the war, Hitler's Madman has that tiffany type gloss that MGM product was noted for.As was reported and at the time not reported fully, how could it have been since we had little access to the news from the Nazi point of view. But word got out about the bloody reprisals made against the Czech people whom Heydrich was governing even from behind the lines. Lidice was razed to the ground as it was the location of the assassination. If anything we could only guess how bad it was.There are three other interesting portrayals to note. First is Howard Freeman as Heydrich's superior, Heinrich Himmler. William Shirer said that he looked about as frightening as a schoolmaster and that's how Freeman does him as well. His scene with the dying Heydrich is classic as he tells Heydrich he's going out a hero for the Fatherland and Heydrich just doesn't want to go.Then there's Edgar Kennedy whom I never knew doing anything else but being the slow burn comedian. He plays a cynical hermit who shunned Czech society, but has no use for the Nazis either. But being and choosing to live alone makes him better able to adapt.My favorite however was Ludwig Stossel who plays the German mayor of Lidice who is a proud Nazi, but who also hears about the loss of his two sons in Russia. Still when Heydrich is attacked, he's arrested for not doing enough to keep the people down and appreciative of their new masters. All of Stossel's protests about what a good party man he is and how loyal to the Fuehrer he is, avail him naught.One big star is in this, but Ava Gardner is an extra somewhere in the crowd of Lidice citizens. I couldn't spot her, but you might have better luck. Despite the deceptive title Hitler's Madman does hold up well for today's audiences. A film about Heydrich's whole career would be a fascinating one for today's audience.

Douglas Sirk's career is recalled for his wonderful colorful attacks on the "American Dream" in those films he made (usually with Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, and Agnes Moorehead) in the 1950s. Never was the lusciousness of American prosperity used to show the underside of our wealth oriented culture. But Sirk had a long career in Europe and Hollywood before he made "Magnificent Obsession" and "Imitation of Life". His films in the middle forties included some superb costume films with George Sanders (like "Summer Storm")and this early one which really stars John Carridine as one of the most monstrous figures of World War II, Reinhard Heydrich the so-called "Protector" of Bohemia, who chaired the Wannsee Conference of 1941 that created the "Final Solution". Whatever degree of venom Carridine brings to the role is nothing like the effortless evil the original Heydrich dripped. Still it is a very effective performance.The film is based, by the way, on the poem "Lidice" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Written shortly after that village was decimated in the reprisals following Heydrich's death, it is recited (in a woman's voice) in most of the film, but it's closing lines are recited by the male actors at it's conclusion - quite effectively as most of these actors (Edgar Kennedy, Jimmy Conlon, Ralph Morgan) have been slaughtered by the Nazis in front of us. As some of these actors (Kennedy and Conlon) usually were seen in comedies, their use as straight dramatic actors in this film is a revelation of what they might have done if they had not been used in comedy so much.To me the best moment of this film (aside the use of the poem) is when Carridine lies dying in a hospital, visited by Howard Freeman as his comrade and fellow S.S. bigwig, Heinrich Himmler. Freeman was an affective actor in comic and dramatic parts, and here shows the hideous Himmler as a banal Babbitt bureaucrat. Perhaps not quite correct historically (Himmler was stranger than George Babbitt) but in it's way quite effective. Carridine had (in his characterization) shown something of the intellectual pretensions of Heydrich, but as he is dying he suddenly realizes he is frightened of dying. He tries to explain this to Himmler who doesn't care (so much for being a fellow Nazi comrade) and only sees the mission of the dying Heydrich to become a martyr to stiffen German will to victory. As Carridine finally dies, Freeman only sees his duty to make a large enough retaliation on the local population so that people will realize that he is harder than the dead martyr ever was.Historically this is not accurate either. Heydrich had been in high level Nazi planning for several years, and frightened not only Himmler as a rival, but Bormann, Goebbels, and Hitler himself. Heydrich had a nasty "rumor" in his past: his father, a musician, may have been descended from Jews. This was never settled. However, due to this particular rumor, Heydrich's opponents felt they could control him. In actuality, it was easier to control an out of control Mercendes Benz. As soon as he could, Heydrich began collecting information on every one of his rivals about their family backgrounds (including Hitler's). It was his eventual determination that he would one day be the successor of "Der Fuhrer". Himmler, Hitler, and the others may have officially honored Heydrich as a national martyr, but in their own private moments they all were fully glad to see that he was dead and out of the way.Their real reason for the massive retaliation was the fear of copycat plans. The Czechs who killed Heydrich were trained in London, and had Churchill's assent on their plot. No doubt, had they gotten away with it, plots against other Nazi big-wigs would have been set in motion. The retaliation was to remind the local populations that the Germans would not hesitate to depopulate them if anymore assassinations occurred. It was also a reminder to the Allies that if they wanted to save lives they better not plan any further killings. As such it worked. Although several plans for an attack on Hitler were finally set up, none were ever put into operation (the 1944 bomb plot was by the German General staff, not by Churchill). Whether this was wise or not is a matter we cannot ever tell the answer to.Heydrich's actual death is nothing like the hideous death camps he set up for Jews, Gypsies, Slavs. etc. But it still is somewhat pleasant to think of the agony of his last days, his spine broken by the steel springs of his exploded car seat. The affection that his title "Protector" supposedly suggested is truly shown by a story of how a German soldier desperately tried to get passers by to assist to help move the "Protector" to a nearby hospital quickly. An unknown Czech citizen looked at the dying man in the ruins of his Mercedes, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "The hospital is around the corner. He could walk there." Then he left the flustered soldier.