this land is mine is timeless and a cautionary tale for today. previous revues of this film were offered either before our recent economic crash or very early on when we didn't know the depth of the calamity. now, in the ensuing years, it is becoming clear collaboration exists and requires no occupying enemy. despite the movie was propaganda, it was propaganda of the best kind. the entire film was without theatrics nor a punch-to-the solar plexus message as evidenced in the Laughton soliloquy; the clear measured tenor of a man who has found his heart and courage. casting of the supporting players was inspired. in a film with perhaps three or four second and third part players it may be easy enough to recruit a strong supporting cast but this movie had so many important roles the casting seems a minor miracle.kudos to all concerned in this gem. the one misstep, if i may be so picky, was the crescendo-ing close as the screen went black.

I found this gem of a movie on television. Charles Laughton was outstanding. He conveyed perfectly the thesis of the film: that Nazism and the New World Order depended on corrupting those they occupied, tempting them with rewards for betraying their fellow countrymen more than even the brutal intimidation we are all familiar with.I was also quite interested to see the collaboration between the big industrialists and the Nazis, who corrupted them by catering to their anti-unionism. The fact that being against unions was a pillar of Nazi ideology has not been well known, but Renoir's film made it crystal clear.All the performances were well above par; Sanders played the self-seeking weasel who has a change of conscience very well, in a very legible, nuanced way. Maureen O'Hara was also excellent, as always.But it was Charles Laughton, standing before the collaborators, Nazis and his own mother as he comes to realize how crucial the Rights of Man are to living decently and honorably, who wins the day.

***SPOILERS*** Overly talkative with almost no action WWII era film about the Nazis attempt to brainwash a local population in an unnamed French town in the glories of the Aryan race and eternal wisdom of their leader Adolph Hitler. Of course the people in town know that's all BS but have no choice but to go along with it in order to keep from being sent to the nearest Nazi concentration camp or gestapo firing squad.It when acts of sabotage is committed against the occupying German troops that the man in charge German Army Major Eric Von Keller, Walter Slezak, takes the gloves off and threatens to takes hostages and have them shot if the sabotage continues.The person who''s behind all this is hot headed Paul Martin, Kent Smith, who despite his out front love of the German occupiers, he's alway seen partying and drinking with them, secretly hates their guts and does everything to make their stay in town as uncomfortable as possible. Including dropping a bomb on a German army military car and killing two of its occupants.As things turn out Maj. Von Keller has a bunch of Frenchmen taken hostage and threatened to have them shot at sunrise if the killer of the two German solders doesn't give himself up.Two of those held hostage by the Germans are school teacher Albert Lory, Charles Laughton, and history and philosophy professor Sorol, Philip Merivale, who later met his end before a German firing squad. It's then that things get real interesting in that the wanted man's-Paul Martin-sexy sister Louise, Maureen O'Hera, works together with Albert as a French History teacher whom Albert is madly in love with.As things turn out it's Albert's mom Mrs. Emma Lory, Una O'Connor, who fingers Paul as the bomber by telling Louise's fiancée train superintendent George Lambert,George Sanders, that it was Paul who snuck into the Lory home with a wounded hand after he escaped from the German Army dragnet after doing in the two German solders. Lambert the butt kissing and gutless wonder that he is in order to save his behind puts the finger on Paul,by reporting him to major Von Keller, and at the same time hoping that no one in town, especially Louise, would ever find that out!It's when Paul is finally killed in a shootout with the Germans that Albert is released from prison which has Louise suspect that he fingered her brother in order to gain his freedom. The fact that Albert had nothing to do with Paul's death,in fact it was his concerned mom Mrs. Emma Lory who was responsible for it, made his go down to the train depot to confront George Lambert who he in fact knew was the person,after Mrs.Lory revealed that Paul was the mysterious saboteur, who fingered Louise's now dead brother Paul. As things turned out George, when forced by Major Von Keller to turn over his girlfriend Louise to the gestapo for aiding and abetting her brother Paul's escape, blew his brains out moments before and enraged Albert got to his office.***SPOILES*** Arrested for George's murder Albert decides to for once in his cowardly life to take a stand and not only takes responsibility for George's murder,in killing him in his mind not in real life, and let the chips fall where they may; Which is a volley of bullets from a German firing squad. The movie gets a bit ridicules with Albert getting all the time he needed to make a fool of not only the Germans but their French collaborators as well with the German soldiers and authorities at his trial doing nothing to stop him acting as if their brain dead or suffering from the advanced stages of Alzheimer's Disease. With Albert going on endlessly on the stand with how the townspeople should stand up for their rights and that George did the right thing in blowing his brains out was so surreal and unbelievable, in that not one of the Germans attending his trial bothered to stop him from talking, that it just destroyed every point he tried to make in his long winded speech. One of those points was that he was not allowed freedom of speech that he claimed the German authorities took away from him and his fellow Frenchmen and women. ****MAJOR SPOILER***The ending was a bit bizarre in that Albert was found innocent of murdering George yet is arrested and possibly shot, off camera, for moments later reading to his students the Bill or Right and US Constitution! And even more bizarre after Albert is taken away Louise picks up where he left off, reading to her student class, within earshot of the German soldiers and gestapo the very same thing without being arrested and put before a firing squad! P.S Both Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara were united in "This Land is Mine" some four years after they starred together in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" where they played very similar parts. The homely non attractive and deformed hunchback guy-Charles Laughton-in love with the beautiful hot blooded and sexy gypsy girl-Maureen O'Hara.

WWII propaganda reached its glorious peak in 1943. You can find anything from gripping war-time thrillers like Wilder's 'Five Graves to Cairo' to preachy, predictable full-blown propaganda pieces like Dmytryk's 'Hitler's Children.' Jean Renoir did his duty, as well. When Germany invaded and occupied France in 1940, the French director fled to the United States, where he found it difficult to find film projects that suited his unique skills and interests. 'This Land is Mine (1943)' was obviously very close to Renoir's heart, for his own homeland was now under Nazi control; indeed, despite an opening title card that vaguely specifies a city "somewhere in Europe," he obviously has a French locale in mind. The film works, aside from Renoir's skills as a director, because of the level of respect shown towards the audience. It doesn't speak down to them from a podium, but rather addresses them as comrades, all men and women being equal. It's a call for action; a plea for courage. If the Germans are to be defeated, we must be willing to place everything on the line.It's also beneficial that Renoir had a stellar cast with which to work. Maureen O'Hara is pretty and independent as a patriotic school-teacher who doesn't bother to hide her disdain towards the Germans. Her boyfriend, played by the ever-charming George Sanders, is a smarmy businessman who would rather cooperate with his enemies than feel the sear of their bullets. Walter Slezak, the captured Nazi captain in Hitchock's 'Lifeboat (1944),' plays the German commander who manipulates the oppressed French with sickly appeals to their sense of righteousness. But the film belongs to Charles Laughton. Though he himself only helmed the production of one film (a little thriller called 'The Night of the Hunter (1955)'), directors easily related to him because, unlike most of Hollywood's leading men, he was not a generically handsome and romantic lover, but a generously-proportioned man with substantially more personality than looks. Furthermore, he could play it mean, which pleased directors like Hitchcock and Wilder, or he could play it sympathetic, which more closely suited Dieterle and Renoir.In his excellent book "The Hitchock Murders," critic Peter Conrad proposes that Charles Laughton's characters in two Alfred Hitchcock movies, 'Jamaica Inn (1939)' and 'The Paradine Case (1949),' served to symbolise the director's own unspoken thoughts and desires; Laughton, in effect, played the role that Hitchcock himself would have played had he been comfortable with any more than a brief appearance in each of his films. I can see Jean Renoir utilising Laughton in the same manner, employing him as a doppelganger of sorts. Renoir was quite used to playing important roles in his own films, but obviously his leading man in a Hollywood production had to be somebody more recognisable. Not only did he choose an actor with whom he shared a reasonable physical likeness, but his character is reminiscent in many ways of Renoir's role in 'The Rules of the Game (1939). Like Octave, Albert Lory is humble, softly-spoken and utterly lonely in love, but clearly forms the emotional backbone of the picture, for it is he with whom the audience most closely sympathises.