13 Mar Watch on the Rhine
Watch on the Rhine, WWII Movie starring Bette Davis
(1943) A German engineer has been working against the Nazis for many years, moving from country to country. In 1940 he comes with his family to the United States thinking they will be safe there.
Watch on the Rhine is based on Lillian Hellman’s 1941 play of the same name. Hellman was a Jewish American writer who by 1943 had already written several Broadway plays and movies including The Children’s Hour (1934 play), The Little Foxes (1939 play, 1941 movie), and The North Star (1943 movie.) In the 1950’s Hellman was investigated for and testified about pro-communist activities.
Paul Lukas won the Academy Award for Best Actor and there were four other nominations. I liked Bette Davis, but I loved Lucille Watson who played her mother.
According to this TCM article Watch on the Rhine was an important early film warning the U.S. about the Nazi’s. When it played on Broadway in 1941 we weren’t even in the war yet. My favorite wartime movie critic, Bosley Crowther of the NYT said it best: Ms. Hellman “was showing complacent Americans, serene in their neat security, that the spreading disease called fascism was not remote from our shores and that it wasn’t an academic problem to be met with good intentions and smug outrage.”
I enjoyed watching this very much. Because so much of the “action” takes place in the living room of a beautiful Washington DC mansion I thought I actually could be watching it on Broadway.
Watch On The Rhine [DVD] on amazon.com
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