BEFORE: I found out from the "Downfall" trivia section on IMDB that Bruno Ganz also had a small role in this other Nazi-themed movie, so while it wasn't part of the original plan, I'm dropping it in today as an extra. This puts me behind a little, but I can double-up again in early May if I need to hit Mother's Day right on the button.
I have to be careful, though, and spread all of my Nazi-themed movies across several streaming platforms, I don't want to set off any alerts, or make even the bots think that I'm really into Nazi stuff. So "The Reader" was dubbed to a DVD in-house, I watched "Look Who's Back" on Netflix, "Downfall" was on Amazon Prime, and today's film was free on Tubi. I'll still be in trouble, though, if my wife starts getting Nazi-themed films recommended to her on the Prime account.
THE PLOT: A Nazi hunter in Paraguay discovers a sinister and bizarre plot to rekindle the Third Reich.
AFTER: I'm jumping back 27 years from "Downfall", at least in terms of release dates - I had no idea that Bruno Ganz had such a long career, or that he passed away last year. I'm learning so much lately. But in terms of the settings, I'm jumping ahead, from 1945 to 1978. The movie that was made earlier than yesterday is actually set later, but of course now they were both made and set in the past, so it's all relative, I guess. But still my brain needs to re-set itself, like when moving from one time zone to another. There's no time travel here, like Hitler didn't suddenly disappear in 1945 and re-appear in 2014, but there's still something of an attempt here to bring him back, sort of, only in a very different way.
The story starts with an overheard Nazi plan to kill 94 seemingly random people around the world, most in Europe, some in the U.S., and a few in Canada. All of the men are civil servants in their 50's, but otherwise appear to have nothing in common, except for younger wives. What this all means and how it brings back Nazi Germany is something of a mystery, until an older Nazi hunter decides to visit all the men, only he does it by visiting the ones closest to him first, then working out a complicated travel plan to visit the others, only in a specific travel plan designed for maximum efficiency. That sounds like a very German thing to do. Perhaps if he can figure out the connection between these families before the men are killed, somebody can put an end to the extremely unlikely plot to take over the world by assassinating minor government employees.
In one sense, this film from 1978 was far ahead of its time, because things like IVF and artificial reproduction technologies were still considered science fiction, the first "test tube" baby was born in 1978, the same year this film was released, and the first successfully cloned mammal was Dolly, the sheep, who was cloned in 1996. And now it's 2020, and human cloning still hasn't happened, at least not on the public record, and that might be partially due to films like this, that detailed the potential downsides if that technology fell into the wrong hands. I just know that I wasn't allowed to see this film when I was a kid, probably because it had a reputation as a bit of a horror-based sci-fi movie, but I'm guessing it also wasn't approved by the diocese of Boston as an appropriate film, and that's the standard my mother used when deciding what films to let me watch. Well, I'm an adult now and I can decide for myself, and I guess I've always remained a little curious about this one.
Problem is, other than the scientific aspect (most of which ultimately proved to be true, or at least possible), I don't think the rest of the film has aged all that well. It doesn't seem to have the same "scare factor" reputation that it might have once enjoyed, maybe because it's now mathematically impossible for any original Nazis to still be alive. Neo-Nazis and alt-right Nazis are scary now, so I have to remind myself that back in 1978, when Josef Mengele might have still be alive, that was about the scariest thing that storytellers could come up with, that he and a bunch of Nazis were living in Paraguay and conducting scientific experiments. You've got to admit, that seems quite ridiculous now, because everybody knows that the Nazis all moved to Argentina, right? And they would have all been in their 70's by then, so they were probably more concerned with fighting heart disease and arthritis than trying to bring back the Third Reich.
There's a weird mix of actors here, too - some old Hollywood stars, others who were character actors in Hitchcock thrillers or those old Hammer Films horror movies, along with a couple young bucks/rising stars like this Steve Guttenberg fellow. Watch out for that kid, he's really going places. And now you know, if anybody asks you to name a film that somehow, impossibly featured Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier and that guy from the "Police Academy" movies, you have your answer. Most people have probably forgotten that he was once America's best defense against the spectre of elderly Nazis in the 1970's.
OK, I promise I'm off of the Nazi topic for the foreseeable future - I have a documentary called "Meet the Hitlers" about regular people with that notable last name, and I'm guessing there's some footage of the man himself in there, but none of these past few films did. I also want to get to "Jojo Rabbit", but probably not until after October, since it links to "Black Widow".
Also starring Gregory Peck (last seen in "You, Me and Dupree"), Laurence Olivier (last seen in "Dracula" (1979)), James Mason (last seen in "Julius Caesar"), Lilli Palmer, Uta Hagen (last seen in "Reversal of Fortune"), Steve Guttenberg (last seen in "Drew: The Man Behind the Poster"), Denholm Elliott (last seen in "Alfie"), Rosemary Harris (last seen in "The Gift"), John Dehner (last seen in "Support Your Local Gunfighter"), John Rubinstein, Anne Meara (last heard in "Planes: Fire & Rescue"), Jeremy Black, Walter Gotell, David Hurst (last seen in "Kelly's Heroes"), Wolfgang Preiss (last seen in "A Bridge Too Far"), Michael Gough (last seen in "Horror of Dracula"), Joachim Hansen, Sky du Mont, Carl Duering, Linda Hayden (last seen in "Taste the Blood of Dracula"), Richard Marner, Georg Marischka, Günter Meisner (last seen in "Funeral in Berlin"), Prunella Scales (last seen in "Howards End"), Raul Faustino Saldanha, Wolf Kahler (last seen in "Wonder Woman"), Jürgen Andersen, Mervyn Nelson, David Brandon, Monica Gearson, Gerti Gordon.
RATING: 4 out of 10 Doberman pinschers
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