User reviews

I have seen Richard Basehart in many things and I always thought he had potential but I never saw him do anything that made me go WOW!! That was good! That is until I saw this flick. I have read volumes on Hitler and have viewed and listened to Hitler's speeches at Nuremberg and the Reichstag and I think I have some sense of how he was and I think Richard Basehart did the best and most believable portrayal of him that I have ever seen. Hitler was of course extremely enigmatic and charismatic so he would be difficult to portray and I never saw anyone do a good portrayal of him until this film. The rest of the actors do a good job and the movie itself is fair to good; although it suffered from a low budget. Historically accurate as best I can recall. I think they relied heavily on Hughe Trevor Ropers history of him. But for all its good points see it for Richard Basehart he really shines in this!!

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Hitler and all things Nazi. TV was exploding with war movies and "historical drama" especially during late night Tv programming. I first saw Hitler on the "Late show" when older movies were shown. As a kid, I completely missed the plot of the movie being about Hitler's sexual hang-ups. For instance his devotion to his dead mother(Which never left him) Sado-sexual desires, controlling all aspects of a woman's life. Which led to the still unsolved case of Geli Ruebal's suicide (The movie gives an obviously fictional account of Geli being murdered by Emil Maurice and Himmler) Hitler, supposedly could only be aroused by being humiliated and urinated on by a partner.(According to Dr. Walter C. Langer's psychological assessment of Hitler published under the title "The Mind of Adolf Hitler) Homosexuality is alluded to (this was 1962) by Roehm's suttle attraction to an SA trooper. In one scene that could be viewed as homoerotic, a group shirtless, muscular men are seen being hanged on the gallow. Roehm alludes to a homosexual relationship with Hitler, although couched in vague terms.. Maybe not 100% accurate, (What movie really is) I think this movie deserves a view.

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Portraying Hitler as being in a virtually perpetually hysterical state, as this film does, is contrary to any historical reality. There are two interesting omissions in it. First, there is no mention, as far as I could ascertain, of what appears to have been Hitler's central obsession, his hatred of Jews, for the destruction of whom he devoted substantial resources which could have been used to further another of his obsessions, world conquest. Second, in the brief portrayal of the conquest of Poland, the film depicts the blackening of the entirety of a map of Poland to represent the Nazi conquest. However, the Nazis did not occupy all of Poland; they split Poland with their then ally, the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, with whom they had entered into an agreement beforehand to divide Poland between them, and pursuant to which the Soviets invaded and occupied the eastern half of Poland. Surely the producers of this film were aware of this fact, so why did did they omit it?

Richard Basehart is OK as Hitler, even if a bit over the top. The rest of the cast is horrible, frankly. The film is an attempt to render Hitler from a psychological perspective, but the insights it offers are cartoonish oversimplifications at best, and can't make up its mind what Hitler's "problem" was. At one point it is implied he was impotent, at another point it is suggested he was homosexual. And always the business about his mother. The film offers more speculation than fact. The time frame of the film is a bit skewed too. Nothing of Hitler's youth is presented for a supposed psychological study. The year 1934 takes up nearly half the film; World War II gets at most ten minutes start to finish. In the end you have no more understanding of Hitler's personality, or his appeal to Germans, than you did at the outset. Which marks the film as a failure.

The character of Adolph Hitler will fascinate historians for more than the thousand years he wanted his Reich to last and for psychiatrists even more than that. The folks who are schooled in both disciplines get something to analyze with this film Hitler and Richard Basehart's performance in the title role.

As for performance the reason for Hitler being the nasty dude that he was that the Fuehrer was a dud in the bedroom. That was something Geli Raubel played by Cordula Tantrow said and signs her death warrant in saying same. In fact she more than hints at the reason, possible incest with his mother. Something that Hitler himself would reject after all psychiatry was simply "Jew science".

Eva Braun portrayed here by Maria Emo is another ill defined role. If we believe Albert Speer's memoir Eva was basically a nice girl without a political thought in her head, but was simply a power groupie and a celibate one at that.

Such familiar faces as Hogan's Heroes Sgt.Schultz played by John Banner is Gregor Strasser, John Mitchum is Hermann Goering, and the obligatory Martin Kosleck is Joseph Goebbels. Berry Kroeger is Ernst Roehm with barely a hint of the homosexuality that later offended Hitler so mightily after when he had to make a deal with the army. The Code was still in place, but you'll spot it in the film.

Richard Basehart gives a sincere portrayal of Hitler. But the film is badly written and directed.

HITLER, an Allied Artists production in 1962 was THE definitive portrayal of Adolph Hitler as I know and understand him in my extensive readings. More a psychological portrait, my closest friend at least conveyed to Mrs. Basehart at an art opening in Beverly Hills that I considered this her husband's finest portrayal. If only I had the good fortune to have met him during his lifetime to convey this! The entire cast is superb and the only flaw in this effort was its limited budget which relied on a great deal of stock footage from the Second World War. Martin Kosleck shines in his role as does the rest of the cast. A landmark film for all time and an accurate representation of the most complex and demonic personality of the entire 1900s.

I don't think we'll ever really know why actors sign a contract to portray Adolph Hitler in a movie. Don't they know it's a mistake that could ruin their careers forever? Perhaps, as was the case for Alec Guinness and Richard Basehart, their careers were very far south anyway so it didn't matter. This 1962 biopic starred the latter after his jaunt in Italy ruined his career in Hollywood. Unfortunately for him, it did nothing to buoy him up for a while. It was a forgettable movie with cheap production values, and although he tried his hardest, it's very difficult to get good reviews for a Hitler movie.

One interesting slant on this movie, if we're being kind here, is that the main focus is how he feels about women. We know he had a very complicated relationship with his mother, and as we also know, the relationship a boy has with his mother permeates through to adulthood and colors all relationships with women in the future. We see him time and again in the film having relationships with the women spiral out of control. He uses his power to lure them in, then explodes in rage when he thinks that power is all they're after. He's just incapable of being vulnerable in front of a woman and letting her decide if she likes the real him. Still, does anyone really want to watch this movie? Stick with Fourteen Hours for your Richard Basehart acting fix.

In what's without a doubt the best interpretation of Nazi Dictator Adolph Hitler, until it was eclipsed by Bruno Ganze portrayal of Hitler in the 2004 WWII classic "Downfall", Richard Basehart gives the performance of his life as the psychotic and later suicidal German Fuhrer who at one time was the most powerful man on earth. That's until the roof and walls caved in on him and his so-called "Thousand Year Reich" that came apart in the spring of 1945.

The film "Hitler" goes mostly into Adolph Hitler's very personal life that had to do with his relationships with his teen-age niece Gila Raubal, Curdula Trantow, and later his personal photographer's young assistant Eva Bran, Maria Emo. The two women who most reminded Hitler of his late mother Klara Hitler who died of cancer when he was still a teenager back in the winter of 1907. The movie brings out that Hitler had a very strong attachment to his mother that kept him from having any kind of serious relationship with women in his future years as both an adult as well as German Dictator.

The film "Hitler" starts out with the 1923 failed Beer Hall Putch in Munich that turned out to be a godsend for Hitler who besides having some two dozen of his fellow Nazis killed by the local police was himself captured tried and convicted of high treason and sent to Lansberg Prison where he ended up serving only a year behind bars! If anyone else would have tried to do the same thing when Hitler was in power he or she wouldn't have gotten off so easily. It was while in Lansberg Prison that Hitler wrote what was to be the Bible of the Nazi Party "Mein Kampf". In fact "Mein Kampf" was a blueprint for Hitler's future plans when he took control of Germany! But no one took it seriously until it was too late which eventually lead to WWII and the loss of over 50 million lives!

Between Hitler's steamy and odd-ball affairs with Gila Raubal and Eva Braun we also see his climb to the leadership of he German Nation in becoming it's ultimate and all powerful leader or Fuhrer but at the price of hundreds if not thousands of fellow Germans. Many like his good friend and WWI army buddy the commander of Hitler's dreaded Brown Shirts the SA Ernst Rohm, Barry Kroeger. It was Rohm's misfortune to stand in the way of the German General Staff who felt him to be a threat to their power with his two million strong army of Brown Shirts. It was the German Army General Saff that got Hitler, who at the time was only the German Chancellor, to do Captain Rohm in together with his top lieutenants on "The Night of the Long Knives", June 30-July 1,1934, in order to gain their support. With the German Army now solidly behind him Hitler now had the means to accomplish his goal of conquering the entire world or end up dead, which he did, doing it!

We get to see Hitler go from almost conquering all of Europe only to end up some 100 feet under the streets of Berlin in his reinforced steel and concrete bunker with only a few loyal Nazis like Propaganda Minster Joseph Goebbles, Martin Kosleck, and soon to be wife-"The Bride of Adolph Hitler"-Eva Braun at his side. With death staring him in the face Hitler rewards Eva Braun in becoming his wife as the two end their lives, with bullet and cyanide capsule, as their world, the Third Reich, goes up in flames together along with them. The film ends abruptly without the usual "The End" or closing credits implying that Adolph Hitler, and his many crimes, are somehow still with us.

Remarkable performance by Richard Basehart as the Nazi Dictator Adolph Hitler that has been almost forgotten over the years by the movie going public with the film almost never being broadcast on TV or available on VSH tapes or DVD disks. Now with the film being shown on TCM on what turned out to be the 65th anniversary of Hitler's death people will finally be able to see just what a buried gem it was all these some 40 years that it was kept from the public and laid on the shelf collecting dust.

P.S Despite his notorious and racist reputation especially in his dislike of those not being like himself, of the white Aryan race, Adolph Hitler's autobiography "Mein Kampf", which has been banned in both Germany and his native Austria, has become one of the biggest best sellers in Third World country's like India China, where its only available for research purposes only, as well as the Muslim World! In fact even here in the West, Europe and the USA, more books and movies have been published and made about Adolph Hitler then those of his WWII adversaries British Empire Prime Minster Winston Churchill US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet Primer Joseph Stalin combined!

Technically atrocious and hysterically inaccurate in almost all ways. Events maddeningly out of order... characters come and go almost randomly. Not a single character plays out realistically... from Basehart's histrionics to the actress who plays Eva Braun with strange stoicism which was not her primary characteristic. Even Martin Kosleck -- an otherwise talented actor -- plays Goebbles strangely and with an odd sense of sympathy, which was assuredly not a trait he had.

It's not as if we don't know what occurred, but apparently the writer didn't have a clue.

Inexcusable garbage, created by a hack director and the remnants of Monogram Studios in the guise of Allied Artists, though released through Warner Bros.

Richard Basehart delivers a great performance, the psychological analysis within the film is at moments hilarious... I enjoy all these old Hitler films and this one is well worth watching ...

I was very excited to see the film being a History Major in college and somewhat of a World War 2 buff , but I found the movie to be slow and silly. Eva Braun was nothing like the portrayal of her done in this film. She was a silly, and light hearted girl who laughed a lot. This movie portrays Hitler as a sexually frustrated weirdo who is obsessed with his mother, when those who lived around Hitler swear that he had a healthy sexual relationship with Braun. The acting was good, but the script was just not even close to accurate. Also, Stauffenburg was not hanged..he was shot. The film takes to many liberties with the historical record in my opinion.

The most terrible dictator of the 20th century is portrayed convincingly by the star Richard Basehart. The ruthless hate and mania of Hitler knew no bounds and this film portrays Hitler unsympathetically at different stages of his ascent to power in Germany. There is a perverse fascination to see Basehart's Hitler suffer in his personal life.

Though the characters portrayed were real, this is a drama and not a documentary. If you're looking for a comprehensive study of Hitler's life, many books at the library are available. Watch this film for a straightforward look at Hitler's psychotic character as it may have manifested itself to those closest to him.

This movie offers an "inside view" of Hitler's relationships with the women closest to him, Geli Raubal and Eva Braun. We also see the possibility that a pivotal and controversial event in the Nazi's rise to power--the burning of the Reichstag--was in all probability an arson committed by the Nazis themselves.

The martial soundtrack by Hans J. Salter is an added bonus.

This movie suffers to a greater extent than "average" from the common weakness of Hitler movies. The caricature that it presents of the man is one of a completely unlikable, overbearing and deranged individual. This depiction of the man is utterly unsatisfactory in its failure to offer even a clue as to how such a purportedly totally unsympathetic character could mesmerize and captivate millions by the shear power of his personality. Alec Guinness, despite a camp movie script, was able to give us glimpses of the charismatic side of the Hitler persona in "Hitler: The Last Ten Days;" not so Richard Basehart in this movie. Much more revealing and insightful is the portrayal of the man in the movie "Downfall," although, tellingly, it has received much criticism for "humanizing" Hitler.

The private life of Adolf Hitler as you have never seen before on a screen, in a movie. So far in 1962.... The intention is fairly interesting, but the result is lame, with many inaccuracies. So, for an historian, I won't recommend it at all. Only destined to movie buffs more interested in Stuart Heisler's movies - this one being his last - than in Adolf Hitler's private life. Richard Basehart is not Bruno Ganz in THE FALL (2005). But, I repeat, you can watch it if you have nothing else to do, by curiosity, for not do die as an idiot. However if you are a WW2 expert, avoid this feature, it could disappoint you.