So Ends Our Night

America might still have officially been neutral in 1941, but Hollywood filmmakers were beginning to poke at the nation's conscience with films like the unjustly overlooked So Ends Our Night. A young Glenn Ford and Fredric March stay one step ahead of the Nazis as they journey from country to country without passports only to meet with indifference to their plight wherever they go. Its message is still relevant today - and still as overlooked.

If you had taken tenth grade world history in the early 60s and your teacher liked to show movies in class and was semi cool, as mine was, this is the anti Nazi film he or she would have shown. In other words, this is a thoughtful, admirable, well intentioned and ever so faintly dull work that I would gladly have traded for fifteen minutes of "Notorious" or ten of "Inglorious Bastards".

Best thing about it is William Daniels' cinematography and William C Menzies' production design which together create a dark, menacing Central Europe of the mind as the lights are starting to go out, literally and figuratively. Also, John Cromwell's direction, although sluggish at times, does manage to capture the sense of rootless, suspended animation in which many refugees find themselves. And Frederick March, as always, gives a most compelling performance.

Worst things about it are. Screenwriter Talbot Jennings' too florid, too philosophical, too Nobility Of Man dialogue and the incredibly dull pairing of Glenn Ford and Margaret Sullivan as Jews on the run. (These two are about as Hebraic as Carolina pork bbq).

Give it a generous B minus 'cause it had the courage to be not only anti Nazi during the height of isolationism but anti chief Hollywood anti semite and censor, Joe Breen, as well.

PS...A personal note. This is my 1000th review on IMDB and it's been a total blast. Love the edit feature (most of my thoughts are second and third ones) and the overall intelligence of my colleagues (with a couple exceptions, of course). Very few rabid right or left wingers or Kay Francis/Mickey Rooney nostalgists in evidence. Looking forward to the next couple thou.

Wartime drama from United Artists and director John Cromwell. Three Austrian citizens find themselves outcasts in their own land after the rise of fascism. Josef Steiner (Fredric March) is persona non grata thanks to his outspoken political beliefs, while young man Ludwig Kern (Glenn Ford) learns that he is half-Jewish. Academic Ruth Holland (Margaret Sullavan) is fully Jewish, with the added "crime" of having been engaged to an Aryan. These struggles to survive as they are arrested and deported multiple times, sent to countries throughout Europe.

This film was a political hot potato when it was released, as Hollywood was warned by the Production Code not to make any overtly anti Nazii films. Therefore this adaptation of an Erich Maria Remarque novel was independently produced by David Loew and Albert Lewin, who took their chances with the film getting approval, which it did. It's a powerful, moving indictment of the activities of the time, with good performances, especially from a very young Glenn Ford, whose career was said to have been greatly boosted by his turn here. Ironically, both star Fredric March and director John Cromwell would become subjects of US government displeasure during the HUAC era. The movie earned an Oscar nomination for Best Score (Louis Gruenberg).

Stateless refugees from Hitler's Germany must move from one country to the next in this realistic film from 1941. The realism is in the cast of actors other than the well known Glenn Ford, Frederic March, Frances Dee, and Margaret Sullavan, those playing the smaller but important parts of spies, sympathizers, officials, restaurateurs, nurses, etc...all with a keen eye for authenticity and details. As well, one of the best parts in the film is played by Erich Von Stroheim as an intelligent, sympathetic, and cunning SS officer who's out to arrest the non-conformist played in a terrific part by Frederic March. So while we follow the main characters and a touching love story and a biting role for March, the real value of the picture is the portrait it paints in its portrayals of the other people caught up in the pre-war manoeuvrings.

Good film, very well acted, and somewhat confusing.

Frederic March, Margaret Sullivan, and Glenn Ford star in So Ends Our Night from 1941, directed by John Cromwell. They have able support from Leonid Kinsky, Anna Stenn, and Erich von Stroheim.

The film begins before the Anschluss and before Hitler marched into Paris. Three Germans go from country to country without passports, hiding; once caught, they can choose where they want to be deported. Soon, of course, wherever they land will mean death.

Josef Steiner (March) had to escape Germany due to his politics, leaving behind his ill wife (Frances Dee), who is being watched. The Jewish Ruth (Sullavan) loses her place at university, is rejected by her Aryan fiance and escapes Germany; and Ludwig (Ford, 25 years old at the time) has learned he is half German and has escaped. They are all hiding in Austria when they meet and become friends.

This is based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, who understood statelessness. The history of the film is interesting - studios were warned not to make anti-Nazi films. This was independently produced.

The best scene in the film occurs when Josef sneaks into Germany to get a glimpse of his wife. Frances Dee is so achingly beautiful - without dialogue, her face says everything as he stands behind her in a marketplace and begs her to divorce him so she won't be watched. Heartbreaking.

The confusion comes in because we're not always sure what country the refugees have landed in. They have to leave Austria. Ludwig goes to Prague to find his father. Ruth goes to Switzerland, and Ludwig joins her.

For the life of me I can't understand why instead of staying there, they want to get to Paris. I realize Hitler wasn't there yet, but I thought Switzerland was neutral. According to what I read, it was not perhaps always welcoming to refugees. Maybe it was too early in the war. Nevertheless it depressed me.

Erich von Stroheim plays a Nazi who wants names from Josef. Josef wants to see his hospitalized wife, so he makes a deal. It's a powerful scene.

Someone posted that the three leads did not use accents and others did. Well, no one was speaking English with a German accent in Europe! They were all speaking German. No accents necessary unless you already had one. Then you were speaking with a dialect.

Though the end was somewhat upbeat, one asks if it really was, knowing the history of the war. I suppose we could hope. It's too gut-wrenching to do otherwise.

This film remains relevant. I don't need to say why.