One of the most unusual U.S. WWII propaganda films, Hitler, Dead or Alive isn't your typical wartime film. This movie is so over the top that it's so bad, it's good. Inspired on an actual true event, in which a businessman promised a reward of one million dollars to anyone to bring Adolf Hitler to justice, dead or alive. The movie took the idea and place a story about three gangsters, Steve Maschick (Ward Bond), Hans "Dutch" Havermann (Warren Hymer), and Joe "The Book" Conway (Paul Fix) accepting that challenge. Bond was the sturdy rock of the gang, Hymer the comic relief and Fix the brains. Seeing how film noir and Warner Bros gangster films were popular at the time; it was no surprised that the film director Nick Grinde & writer Sam Neuman made the controversial choice of portraying American criminals as heroes than the soldiers fighting overseas at the time. It's kinda upsetting in a way, as hundreds of servicemen were dying in the battlefields during the making of this film. You can tell that the movie is so absurd and preposterous, that the movie has a series of improbable scenes that lead them to Hitler (Bobby Watson) like jail-breaking and hijacking a plane. The gangsters are lump-heads idiots who somehow found a way, not to get themselves killed within 10 minutes in Germany. The Nazis in the film are portray like Col. Klink dummies, allowing them to last that long into 70 minute film. In real life, this movie would had ended, once they paratroop into Germany. The movie is full of dumb things happening like Ward Bond taking down an airplane with a tommy gun, while flying. Do not question the probability of one man standing in the open door of a flying aircraft and successfully shooting down another plane. Don't ask. Another highlight of the film is the gangsters shaving off Hitler's mustache and cut off that big lock of greasy hair that hangs in his face. It was funny as hell. The movie recent got back in the public eye, due to that director Quentin Tarantino quoting that he got some influence from this movie to help him make his masterpiece film, 2009's Inglourious Basterds. You can honestly, see the influences, as both movies have Americans going behind enemy lines, causing chaos like prison breaks, and trying to kill Hitler. There are also the same type of female German characters that helped the Americans get closer to Hitler, as in this film, it's Countess/ Dancer Greta (Fee 'Faye' Wall). What a dame! More dangerous than a pocketful of loose razor blades. The movie also influence Mel Brooks, whom got the idea for 1967's The Producers. The acting is mediocre. Ward Bond's pathos-laden delivery is laughable. The studio had to make due with Bruce Edwards who may look the part, but can't convincingly read dialogue. Bobby Watson, Hollywood's #1 Hitler. Between 1942 and 1962 Watson was cast a record ten times in the role of Best Fascist Dictator. Call about being typecast. Gees. He sounds like a cartoon, German stereotype. The professional good actors were either off fighting or unattainable due to budgetary limitations. The movie is bit dated even at the time. There was a pre-infamous Dachau scene; that was a bit haunting. It really shows that Americans really were that clueless on what was really happening in concentration camp around Europe. The quasi-comic tone of the film turns serious at the end, when a desperate Hitler got a weird irony death. I love that speech by the SS guard. "To think that Germany could produce a piece of filth like you". It made my day. The movie did had a bittersweet ending, but it was needed for the time. It still present a powerful war-time message. The movie had a low production budget, as there wasn't much action in this supposedly action pack film. Germany sure looks a lot like Southern California. Most of the sequences were taken from stock footage that didn't match well. The movie hasn't aged well. Since it's in the public domain, most DVDs that copy or transfer this footage had fuzzy or grainy condition. It's hard to find, a great copy of this. The audio is at less decent. You can also find this movie on Youtube or the Internet for free. Overall: Its hammer-over-the-head patriotism is indeed funny. It's a so bad, it's good type of a watch makes it appealing.

I am continuing my "dead or alive" theme with this little war-time propaganda soporific. Before Blood Diamond, Gorillas in the Mist and The Forbidden Dance, Ward Bond went in to Germany via Canada and Great Britain, to kill Adolf Schicklgruber (a.k.a Adolf Hitler). Now I see where the inspiration for Coleman Francis' Red Zone Cuba came from. I will summarize the main points : Steve Maschick (Bond) has just been released from Alcatraz for tax evasion, after serving an 11 year of 12 stint, with his cronies "The Book" (Paul Fix, Alumni of Night of the Lepus) and "Dutch" (the handicap-able Warrne Hymer). The same day a rich tycoon puts up a $1,000,000 reward for the killing of Schicklgruber (Hilter.... oh Monty!!). To set the record straight. A bunch of beer swilling low-level criminal mobsters want to infiltrate the deepest corners of the Third Reich and assassinate Hitler. The plan, none. It's all improvised. Colonel "Hannibal" Smith would have said something about "jazz" at this point.I'm done with the plot at this point. I will continue by sharing with you some of the intricacies of this sublime stain. They must have been working with a very, very limited budget. The cockpit of the paratrooper plane looks like a giant room, with an oval arch. The pilot is sitting down in a chair, "acting" like he's looking out the window and may be (through some miracle) holding a flight stick. Ed Wood's production would have looked like Steve Spielberg's by comparison. And of course there the hackney stock footage. We have a musical score that boils your blood at the same time it melts your heart. Yankee Doodle is drawn out into a 2 minute epic, describing the griping and stress-filled mood of hiding under the stairs in the sitting room. It's melody is wave-like, moving from eerie to patriotic to melancholy. It also moves to nausea. We also have yet another movie where Hitler is right handed. If I remember correctly, Herr Schicklgruber was of the left persuasion. We also cannot forget about characters such as Else, the German Duchess with a sometimes German, sometimes French accent from London, who doubles as a double agent. Have you noticed Germany looks a lot like California? Yeah, I've had enough already. How about you ?Ward Bond worked on 25+ movies with John Ford and who knows how many with John Wayne. He was always the lone-cowboy backing you up. Were the times really that tough or was it the damn old studio system again, with its contractual obligations that lead to his involvement in this production? Ward has committed his energy and effort into this role. It is sad that there is nothing there to keep you . Ward is by far the only reason to keep watching. It is to see his over the top performance as a leading man. This movie also seems a bit ironic when thinking what happened to Ward during the blacklisting in Hollywood and all his Communist comrades. This is a collection of celluloid film which adds up to a ridiculous premise, that is remarkably forward thinking considering the idiocracy of the 26th century to come. It has influenced numerous movies from the Dirty Dozen to Invasion U.S.A to Delta Force. Ward's Anti Nazi-Pro Child message at end, would go on to influence a certain man from Cuba. And inspire millions to "Say hello to his little friend..."

After eleven years at Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay, several gangsters are released and immediately concoct a scheme to kill Hitler in exchange for a bounty. Why will they succeed? Because they previously assassinated a fellow gangster. If you can accept that premise then the other contrived actions and subplots will be immaterial.This film is far-removed from Plan 9 From Outer Space not that it is better. This film was produced in 1941 or '42 which was in the early days of the War, long before the German Army retreated from North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Greece, Romania and France. This is a simple story exploiting the hopes and dreams of many Americans.It is especially interesting that gangsters are cast as heroes and at the end proclaimed "great Americans". J. Edgar Hoover and his star agent Eliot Ness at the FBI must have been livid after spending the 1930s claiming bootleggers and minor gangsters were the greatest threat to America since abolitionists.While some scenes provoke a smile, this is far from the lunacy of Plan 9. The writer, producer and director of this film are mere apprentices or hacks compared to Ed Wood, Jr. To even compare the two films is a travesty. Unlike Plan 9, I recommend renting this because one viewing is more than enough.This would have been great comedy if the Three Stooges had been cast as the lead actors. But, they were not and therefore, this is merely a mild broth that is less than filling. However, it does have one redeeming characteristic and that is the ending when "war lords and profiteers" are proclaimed a greater threat than Hitler. It is mind-boggling that the screenwriter foresaw Dick Cheney, the president of Halliburton corporation who loudly advocated during 2003, invading Iraq allegedly to destroy non-existent weapons of mass destruction. And, subsequently out of sheer coincidence received contracts totaling more than $12 billion to rebuild Iraq.

Three gangsters head for Nazi Germany to capture Adolph Hitler and claim a big monetary reward. With a lot of Fuherer imposter's, how would they find the "real" Hitler: Simple, he had a beer stein cut on his upper lip delivered during the famous Munich Beer Hall Putsch, and grew his trademark mustache to cover it up. All the boys had to do was keep shaving "Hitlers" until they found the real one with the scar. And how did they learn to speak German??? Simple: (in Ward Bond's words) "...from driving a beer truck in Milwaukee..." To everyone who tells me that "Plan 9 From Outer Space" was the worst film ever made, I simply reply: "You haven't seen 'Hitler: Dead or Alive." Watch it for laughs!