UNDERGROUND 1941This 1941 Warner Brothers production is one of the earlier films to deal with the anti-Nazi German Resistance movement. The film stars, Philip Dorn, Jeffery Lynn, Mona Maris, Kareen Verne, Peter Whitney and Martin Kosleck. This one has the old story chestnut of two brothers on opposite sides. Philip Dorn is a chemical engineer with a dangerous second job, that of a radio broadcaster for the secret German underground. He tells the German public the truth about what the Nazis are up to. Of course the Gestapo types are out to collar said underground members. The underground has to constantly be on the move after each broadcast. This is to prevent the authorities from locating the transmitter.Dorn's younger brother, Jeffery Lynn, now puts in an appearance. Lynn has just been discharged from the army after losing an arm in combat. Lynn is of course a die-hard Nazi. In the mix here is Kareen Verne, a member of the underground that Lynn takes a liking to. Dorn and Verne hide the fact that they both are part of the resistance from Lynn.The head Gestapo man is played by Martin Kosleck. Kosleck made a career out of playing various Nazi weasel types. Kosleck's secretary is played by Mona Maris. Kosleck and his bunch nearly grab up Dorn, Peter Whitney and the rest during a broadcast. They are warned by Miss Maris just in time about the raid. Maris is an underground agent who is their contact on the Gestapo staff. Kosleck tries a new ploy and releases a former resistance member, Wolfgang Zilzer. Zilzer has been beaten, tortured, and turned, he is now willing to help the Gestapo. Hoffman leads Kosleck and a Gestapo squad to a meeting place at a Berlin café. Shots are exchanged and an underground type is killed. Miss Verne, who is employed at the café as a violin player, is grabbed up in the raid. Also grabbed up is Jeffery Lynn. He tells the Gestapo that he is seeing Miss Verne and that she cannot possibly with the underground. (Which he believes) Kosleck lets her go, but only if Lynn agrees to keep tabs on her. Lynn agrees to the arrangement. The ever true blue Nazi, Lynn, is dumbstruck when he now discovers that Miss Verne is with the resistance. He does not know whether to turn her in or what. He decides to convince her to quit the underground. He gives the Gestapo info he overhears about a new broadcast location. Needless to say, he does not know that he has actually turned in his brother, Dorn. Dorn is carted off for a round of shall we say, not so gentle questioning. The brother's father, Erwin Kaiser, is also taken into custody. Both are sentenced to the chopping block. Lynn is horrified at what he has done, but tells Kosleck that it was the job of every good German to turn in traitors. He knows that he cannot save his brother and father. The Gestapo of course now trust him. They announce on the radio that the underground broadcasts have been quashed, and the traitors killed. This last statement turns out to be less than accurate as the broadcasts begin again. This time it is Lynn at the microphone.This one plays out more or less like the same years British film, FREEDOM RADIO, both of which follow the same idea. Warner Brothers must have sent out a casting call for every German actor in Hollywood. There is at least a couple dozen German born actors in various roles. Look close and you will see Hans Conried and Henry Brandon in small bits. The director here is Vincent Sherman. Sherman is best known for a string of excellent film noir such as, NORA PRENTISS, THE UNFAITHFUL, BACKFIRE, THE GARMENT JUNGLE, FLIGHT FROM DESTINY and THE DAMNED DON'T CRY. Cinematographer Sid Hickox gives the film a nice assortment of grey and black hues. Three time Oscar winning composer, Adolph Deutsch, supplies the top flight score. Martin Kosleck and Mona Maris would play pretty well the same characters in 1942's BERLIN CORRESPONDENT, with Dana Andrews.

***Some Spoilers*** Pre-Pearl Harbor Hollywood war propaganda flick involving a group of anti-Nazi Germans trying to get the message through to the German people just how rotten the Nazi regime is. Using a shortwave radio the anti-Hitler Germans use it to bring out that the war news is not as bright as their controlled media tells them that it is. There's the sinking of the German super battleship Bismark with all 2,800 sailors, aboard as well as the mysterious flight of Nazi Deputy Fuhrer Rudolph Hess to England whom were told by the Free German radio announcer Eric Franken, Phillip Dorn, just had about enough of Hitler's Germany and escaped to freedom to the British isles! In fact Hess was later tried as a Nazi war criminal at Nuremberg and given a life sentence and then committing suicide, or suspected being murdered, in his Spandou Prison jail cell in 1987 after spending almost 50 years behind bars!It's when Eric's brother Kurt, Jeffery Lynn, shows up with his left arm blown off in Norway that Eric and his members of the anti-Nazi underground run into trouble in that unlike Eric Kurt is a die-in-the-wool Nazi who'll turn him as well as anyone else, even his parents, in if he suspected them of being traitors to their country! It's when Kurt meets Eric's girlfriend and fellow anti-Nazi German violinist Sylvia Helmuth, Kaaren Verne, that his unyielding love for the Fatherland takes a backseat!At first not believing that Sylvia is working for the German underground Kurt is given the job by his superior Col.Heller, Martin Kosleck, to spy on her after she got caught receiving radio equipment through the mail that was banned by the German Government. What Col.Heller doesn't realize is that he has a spy in his own office in the person of his private secretary Fraulein Gessner, Mona Maris, who relays everything going there on to the underground keeping them one step ahead of his henchmen who are out to arrest and execute them. ***SPOILERS*** It's Kurt's lame attempt to prove his worthiness to the Nazi cause as well as save Sylvia from a gestapo firing squad that in the end backfires in him exposing the entire underground movement, as well as his brother Eric, to Col Heller storm troopers. With Eric and his fellow anti-Nazi freedom fighter now about to get the ax, or guillotine, Kurt finally sees the light and joins to good fight by becoming the star announcer of new the Free German Movement after those of the old one have been arrested and slated to be executed by the gestapo!Heart wrenching final with Eric & Co. about to get it in the neck as all of a sudden we and the Nazi gestapo about to do Eric in hear Kurth's voice come out load and clear as it's broadcast all over Berlin denouncing the Nazi Regime and rallying the German people to overthrow it! That's before the Nazis ends up doing to the German people what their about to do to Eric & co, which they ended up doing anyway in the spring of 1945, if the German masses don't rise up and overthrow them before it's too late!

Quite honestly, I never had heard of this film before. And, having just watched it, much to my regret. It was made before U. S. entry into World War II. Yet, Hollywood was quite aware of the evils being perpetrated by the Third Reich. Coincidentally, the case is dominated by actors born in Europe. The story is not that new. Two brothers are on different sides of the spectrum in Berlin: one is a leader of the resistance movement, the other is a wounded German who maintains strong loyalty to the Reich. The film centers on how their worlds and visions collide, with a backdrop of the Nazis' trying to find and silence the resistance's radio broadcasts. The acting is first-rate all around. I suspect this would have been a 'bigger' film if Warner Brothers had used the 'A' team. All in all, a very good little movie.

This top rate production from Warners Bros., tells the story of the anti-Nazi underground and its attempts to sway the German people to reject the Nazi regime and put an end to its war machine. This film is far better than many other later anti-Nazi films cranked out by Hollywood during WW2. The cast all give top rate performances. Martin Koslec is effectively slimey as the Nazi secret police leader who is out to crush the underground. After seeing him here, no wonder he made a career portraying evil Nazi leaders. Perhaps the most memorable performance is by Wolfgang Zilzer as the sad, pathetic former underground leader who becomes a traitor in exchange for release from the hellish torture he is undergoing in a Nazi concentration camp. The scene where he is confronted by underground leaders and forced to commit suicide has real power. The lighting and the music are perfect. Seen today, this film might seem a bit optimistically naive. It gives the viewer the impression the Nazi regime would soon fall from power. None the less the film effectively portrays the terror inflicted on the German people to assure obedience to its corrupt and evil regime. Note; One odd idea thrown in, is a suggestion about why Rudolph Hess fled Germany and flew into London. During one of the underground broadcasts, Philip Dorn states that Hess fled to escape the gestapo and tell the world the truth. This sounds a bit naive, since everything suggests in real life Hess was always a staunch supporter of the Nazi regime. Of course the whole Hess affair is still to this day shrouded in mystery, and we may never know the real reason why Hess flew into London. That, however is a matter of discussion for another forum.