Favorite part of this has to be the concept of a gentleman hunter whose idea of a vacation is to sneak into Bavaria and sport stalk Hitler at his vacation house.

A great set up, excellent cast and some very nice suspense sequences from Lang but it somehow loses its way and wastes all that potential. I kind of got the impression that in the end someone got worried about the tone, the last half hour takes a few darker turns than you might expect and it just doesnt quite feel like the movie you started, perhaps because Lang and the world wasn't really using the nazis for high concept thrills by the time it was released.

It has it's moments, i enjoyed Joan Bennett's character despite the appalling accent and john carradine and george sanders are always welcome but i hoped for a lot more.

Bizarrely, George Sanders' German major is the least fake thing about Man Hunt. Walter Pidgeon is a fake Englishman. The sets are ridiculously fake London. Joan Bennett's accent is absurdly fake Cockney. By contrast, Sanders speaks impeccable German and manages to convince as the monocled baddie.

The film can't be said to be completely successful. It sets itself up as a thriller but for most of its running time it's not very thrilling, instead overly talkative and somewhat hectoring. The connection between Pidgeon and Bennett is utterly lacking in chemistry, though Joan looking fabulous in close-up is not to be underestimated. Of course Fritz Lang injects some sequences with verve and vigour but they appear too widely spaced apart, enabling the fakery to creep in and infect them. Thematically, this is no doubt fascinating within Lang's oeuvre, as my friend Goodwin will hopefully inform me. As a piece of entertainment, it falls short.

One of Fritz Lang's anti Nazi movies. Read the synopsis. Now that's a great setup. Thorndike insists he's only in it for the game, not for the kill. Hitler as a sporting stalk. The evil Nazis find that hard to believe and after a miraculous escape, an excellent chase thriller follows. For a while that is. The movie almost completely derails when the hunter meets Jerry, that's a girl, back on home soil. Upper class meets lower class with thick accents, fluffy melodrama and a bit of humor. Thorndike's carefree, jovial and charming attitude is still amusing, but nearly everything else here feels like it's part of an entirely different movie. There's a pretty chilling scene in London's Underground, that would have been so much more effective should the movie have stayed on its original course. Same goes for the climax. Getting there feels rushed.

5 Directors x 5 Unseen Films - Round VI: Film #20

I see you know life.

Few things are more satisfying than watching Walter Pidgeon shoot Nazis with a makeshift bow and arrow. He built that thing in a cave, with a bunch of scraps. Unlike that tourist Rambo who uses a store bought bow.

Joan Bennett was so beautiful and adorable with her cockney accent!

Lang’s Hitchcock movie. Impressive with some magnificent scenes and a knock out Joan Bennett.
Impossible not to think how the collaboration with Bennett in the 40s resulted in Lang’s greatest movies of the period.
Could be tighter but has some unusually funny moments (for Lang) and it’s an adventure in the mold of North by Northwest or Charade, until it turns darker at the end. 
George Sanders is not as nasty as he could be as the villain, but this is probably due to the fact that censorship demanded “objective” portrayal of the Germans prior to the US entry into World War II.

Anybody who thinks Dick Van Dyke has the worst Cockney accent in film history has clearly never seen Joan Bennett in Man Hunt! The first of their 4 films together for Bennett and Lang, this is an enjoyable wartime thriller with a good, if not always convincing, cast, including 12 year old Roddy McDowell making his US debut. The story takes some good twists as it goes on with a plot point I didn't see coming and was quite surprising.

Talking Pictures

I had initially avoided viewing this film because the premise seemed so silly. However, the opening scenes were excellent and I quickly embraced the story.

Joan Bennett's character seemed a bit odd, even with the knowledge that she was meant to be out of place in a gentleman's world. The scene on the bridge was heartbreaking given the class divisions of that era (and to me, more poignant than the scene's allusions to prostitution).

I did not enjoy the ending but understand it given the historical context at the time of its release.

Lang had certainly made great films before this and he would make better films after this. However, Man Hunt remains a worthy work in his oeuvre.

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This started out so, so strong. I wondered if Hitchcock had used it as a blueprint for some of his later films. It had the playful, yet suspenseful, energy of a Rear Window or a North by Northwest. But then it started focusing more on a romance than the man hunt referenced in the title, followed by a very rushed and unsatisfactory ending.
I really wish there’d been a Duck Powell or Fredric March as our lead character. They coil have deftly balanced the humor/adventure feel the character was meant to employ. Alas, we had Walter Pidgeon, who was benign when he was meant to be serious, and stoic when the comedic bits were at hand.
The supporting cast ends up doing the heavy lifting. Joan Bennett, George Sanders and the irresistible Roddy McDowall are all terrific and help make the picture enjoyable even as it somewhat falters.

Via The Free Library of Philadelphia 

'Kill fascists' - a timeless message.

'Hitler is bad' - relevant during 1920-1941.

Back to the BFI and what a great film to see!
The accents were a bit questionable, but the plot was gripping and fast paced right from the get go. Loved the ending too - can’t beat the sudden abrupt ending of 40s films.

Limp, mechanical wartime propaganda flick. Like third-rate Hitchcock. Later remade as the far superior ROGUE MALE.

"I've got a plane waiting for me at Croydon."

The fish & chips scene is one of the most painful things I've ever sat through.

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

The most dangerous game is hunting Adolfs