NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Macerat It's Difficult NOT To Enjoy This Movie

Manthast Absolutely amazing

ma-cortes One of greatest anti-war films with memorable acting from Charles Laughton , Maureen O'Hara and George Sanders . It's a moving reflexion about war , sacrifice and death . A mild-mannered schoolteacher (Charles Laughton) in a Nazi occupied town during WWII finds himself being torn between collaboration and resistance . He is quite friendly with his fellow teacher , Louise Martin (Maureen O'Hara) and her brother Paul (Kent Smith ) . Meanwhile , at school and street many prohibited books, considered "un-German," were broken or burned in the book-burning pile . Albert is charged with murder but the local Nazi commander, Major Erich Von Keller (Walter Slezak) , offers him a deal . At the end the teacher begins reading to his students "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" (French: Déclaration Des Droits l'Homme Et Du Citoyen), a fundamental document of the French Revolution.This is an excellent classic anti-war movie and deals about sacrifice , collaboration , comradeship , human relations and in which a shy man is drawn into the actions of the resistance . A heart-breaker and elegiac movie in the way it shows war undercutting and qualities of a timid but good teacher . This is a well-paced , deliberate and magnetic drama set in WWII . It is a riveting film dealing with thought-provoking issues , wonderful acting and anti-Nazi denounce . Anyway, the film is very interesting , thematically intriguing and brooding . Time has not diminished its qualities nor its charming to the emotions . Interesting performances enhance an eloquent screenplay by Dudley Nichols . Impressive defense final speech , though propaganda , which is arousing the citizens in court . The film opened simultaneously at 72 theaters in 50 key cities on 7 May 1943, setting a box office record for gross receipts on an opening day. Excellent acting by the great Charles Laughton , giving a remarkable , self-effecting performance as a coward , mild-mannered teacher who is drawn into the actions of the resistance . Very good support cast includes extraordinary actors as George Sanders as George Lambert , Walter Slezak as Major Erich Von Keller , Kent Smith as Paul Martin and special mention to Una O'Connor as mother at a sympathetic though exaggerated interpretation .The film is excellently screen-written and directed by Jean Renoir who approach the intensity and feel of his best works. Son of painter impressionist Auguste Renoir , was perhaps the best of French directors . At its initial French period he directed classics as ¨Boudu saved drowning, Rules of the game, Marseillaise, Day in the country¨ and of course ¨Grand Illusion¨ in which his optimism remains relentless . Renoir was in Hollywood for seven years, where he made ¨Swamp water, Southerner, Diary of chambermaid, This land is mine,and Woman on the beach¨. He returned France where directed other classic films as ¨Carrozza dóro, Testament Dr Cordelier, Picnic on the grass, Vanishing corporal¨ and several others. His films have influenced on Francois Truffaut, Luchino Visconti, Satyajit Ray , among them. Rating : above average, an extraordinary and sensational film.

mark.waltz From what I knew about this film, I wasn't expecting all that much since the critical reception I've read wasn't all that good. However, it is actually a rather good story about the Nazi's invasion of France. A milquetoast teacher (Charles Laughton), dominated by his harridan mother (Una O'Connor), finds he must fight for his principals and beliefs when the Nazis take over his town. He is in love with a fellow school teacher (the beautiful Maureen O'Hara---who wouldn't be?) whose brother (Kent Smith) is doing his best to sabotage the Nazis and ends up being betrayed by O'Hara's fiancée (George Sanders), who secretly supports the Nazis. Laughton is accused of his murder and put on trial. He decides to face his fate with dignity and departs his classroom after making a riveting speech to his students that is pure propaganda but magnificent drama! O'Connor may grate on the nerves at times, but everything she does for the obsessive love for her son is believable. O'Hara as always is a combination of graceful beauty and indestructible feistiness. Sanders makes the most scary civilized villain-the worst kind. He makes a good pair with Nazi Walter Slezak (later the Nazi villain in Hitchcock's "Lifeboat"); To see one clean hand (Sanders) washing the other one (Slezak's) and becoming equally filthy (metaphorically speaking) is very interesting, and makes Sanders' downfall most gratifying.

Igenlode Wordsmith There are a number of very good performances in this picture -- Laughton, for one (an actor who was never afraid to present himself, when necessary, as both ludicrous and repulsive, but who manages to conjure up hidden depths in the same character), but also George Sanders, who supplies a sensitive portrayal of a man who just wants everything to run smoothly... until he discovers that one cannot stop at only one betrayal. Walter Slezak channels Francis L. Sullivan ("Pimpernel Smith") in the role of a corpulent, intelligent Nazi, Philip Merivale makes a convincingly idealistic headmaster, and, unexpectedly, Una O'Conner is surprisingly effective as the hero's fierce old mother. The performance slips occasionally into more familiar grotesquerie, but the vital element of fanaticism is well conveyed: this is a mother who will do anything for what she sees as her helpless lamb, even if her ideas of what is in his best interest do not always concur with his own.Maureen O'Hara -- so memorable as Esmeralda to Laughton's 1939 Quasimodo -- I found to be less convincing here. I'm not sure if that's the fault of the actress or the character; her delivery of lines when she discovers the truth about her brother is particularly cringe-making, alas. Kent Smith, meanwhile, is played more or less as a bland all-American hero: his best lines (and acting moments) come in the confrontation scene with George Sanders, although for most of the film it's hard to realise that the two men, so different in seniority (Sanders is a high-ranking official in charge of the whole goods yard, possibly the whole station: Smith is only a duty signalman under him, and appears at least ten years younger, although the two actors were almost the same age) and in character, are supposed to be close friends. The chase sequences involving Smith's character are successfully gripping.But my major problem with the film is that it's just too blatantly preaching to the audience. The broad colloquial Americanisms, though they jolt in such a Continental setting, are understandable in a US-produced film aimed at the home market: but the all too obvious Hollywood-type propaganda elements damage the film by seriously wounding its plausibility. Characters make speeches that are clearly aimed at convincing the audience back home rather than at influencing their fellow-characters: the doctrine of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is preached. The moral is punched home with a sledge-hammer.

Karl Ericsson because of the finishing speeches by Laughton, this is, by far, the best film Renoir ever did. Now, there something very special with Renoir. Films like La Grande Illusion and La règle du jeu are usually regarded as his best films, but these films are not courageous and do more to defend the status quo than to attack it any way. These films only make sense if you are willing to accept the status quo of the present abomination of market economy as unchangeable and that we may never get rid of the business-men in our midst. here, is instead a film, done in the middle of WWII, which firmly takes a stand against collaboration and, in the speeches by Laughton, gives good explanation how such collaboration is possible - not forgetting the root of the evil, "the business-men". This was a strong film yesterday and still is, if looked upon wisely.