Customer Reviews

Underground

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I saw this film on TV when I was a child. It made such an impression on me that I have searched for it for years, since VHS and then DVDs became widely available.

While it may not have the big names of other war movies, this one is a true morality tale. It grabs you by the gut and shows how people can be misled into following evil-doers, but it also points out that they can see the light, and regain their humanity.

I defy anyone with an ounce of compassion to view this film's final scene without shedding a tear. I plan to show it to my children, because it is rare that you see such a vivid dislay of both the worst and the best that people have to offer in one film. I highly recommend it.

Underground is a film that is hardly known today, perhaps because it lacks any major stars. It's basically a B-movie cast in a film that is not produced to be just a programmer. Set during the early days of World War Two, it features Jeffrey Lynn and Philip Dorn as German brothers involved on opposites of the conflict. Dorn is a leader of the underground movement, while Lynn is a soldier fiercely loyal to the Fuhrer. Dorn's underground members send out leaflets denouncing the Nazis, but more effectively, they broadcast an outlawed radio program that the Nazis want desperately to stop. When Lynn falls in love with Kaaren Verne, another underground member, things get even more complicated. The performers are all quite good (including Martin Kosleck as one of those detestable Nazis portrayed in WWII films), and director Victor Sherman, an accomplished director, tells the story very effectively. It moves along well, builds up excellent suspense, and develops a lot of sympathy for its characters and their cause. This is a great film to "discover", and I hope that on video, it will become more well known. It deserves the attention.

VCI Home Video and Warner Bros. presents "UNDERGROUND" (1941) (95 mins B&W) . . . under Vincent Sherman (Director), William Jacobs (Producer), Hal B. Wallis (Producer), Jack L. Warner (Producer), Oliver H.P. Garrett (Short Story Author), Charles Grayson (Screenwriter), Edwin Justus Mayer (Short Story Author), Sidney Hickox (Cinematographer), Adolph Deutsch (Composer (Music Score), Leo F. Forbstein (Musical Direction/Supervision), Thomas Pratt (Editor), Charles Novi (Art Director) . . . . . cast includes Jeffrey Lynn (Kurt Franken), Philip Dorn (Eric Franken), Kaaren Verne (Sylvia Helmuth), Mona Maris (Fraulein Gessner), Frank Reicher (Prof. Baumer), Peter Whitney (Alex ), Martin Kosleck (Heller), Erwin Kalser (Dr. Franken), lka Gruning (Frau Kranken), Egon Brecher (Herr Director), Ludwig Stossel (Herr Muller), Hans Schumm (Heller's Aide), Wolfgang Zilzer (Hoffman), Henry Brandon (Rolf), Lotte Palfi (Greta Rolf) . . . . . our story deals with the Third Reich and two brothers who are fighting on different sides...with a backdrop of the Nazis' searching for a resistance radio broadcast and trying desperately to silence it once and for all...the script is top notch and the performances are first rate, with a bigger and better film than they expected.when first filming...with solid acting from Jeffrey Lynn and Philip Dorn who are both believeable and keep the pace of suspense growing to a climatic end.

Special footnote, Director Vincent Sherman (July 16, 1906 - June 18, 2006), born in Vienna, Georgia), was a Hollywood director...His movies include Mr. Skeffington (1944), Nora Prentiss (1947), and The Young Philadelphians (1959)...He began his career as an actor on Broadway and later films...He directed B-movies for Warner Bros. before moving up to A-pictures...He was a good friend of actor Errol Flynn, whom he directed in The Adventures of Don Juan (1949)...He directed three Joan Crawford movies The Damned Don't Cry! (1950), Harriet Craig (1950), and Goodbye, My Fancy (1951)...He became known as a "woman's director" (a title he hated), because he could evoke powerful performances from female stars. He would counter this by pointing out that he also directed Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Richard Burton, and Paul Newman...Sherman died less than a month shy of his 100th birthday.

BIOS:
1. Jeffrey Lynn (aka: Ragnar Lind)
Date of birth: 16 February 1909 - Auburn, Massachusetts
Date of death: 24 November 1995 - Burbank, California,
2. Philip Dorn (aka: Hein van der Niet)
Date of birth: 30 September 1901 - Scheveningen, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Date of death: 9 May 1975 - Los Angeles, California
3. Vincent Sherman (Director) (aka: Abraham Orovitz)
Date of birth: 16 July 1906 - Vienna, Georgia,
Date of death: 18 June 2006 - Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California

Want to thank VCI Home Video for releasing "Underground" (1941) - Director Vincent Sherman, the digital transfere with a clean, clear and crisp print...looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage era of the '40s...order your copy now from Amazon or VCI Entertainment where there are plenty of copies available, stay tuned once again for top notch wonderful character actors of the cinema brought back so many wonderful memories of the times when film makers cared about you who purchased a ticket and came back for more...just the way we like 'em.

Total Time: 95 mins on DVD ~ VCI Home Video 7234 ~ (12/28/2004)

A good World War II movie about the Germans that were against the Nazi regime and conducted an undergroung resistence movement.

This review is for the Roan version. Excellent quality from Roan of one of Warner's WWII films. Also includes Vincent Sherman interview. Quite good.

a bit of personal background here: long ago, when tv was watchable, wor (channel 9) in new york city ran something called "the million dollar movie". twice a day, every day for a week, they showed the same film over and over and over again. it might seem bizarre, but compare it to nowadays where we get nbc repeating reality shows from 3 days before as encore events. via m$m, i got to know well irene dunne in "i remember mama"; my friend bugsy still revels in memories of "tales of hoffman"; and other friends in our generous age range have shared fond recollections. that said, one of the movies i came to know (and love) was a film called "underground": a tale of two brothers in nazi germany, one in the resistance and the other in hitlers army. i was always wary about revisiting this film many years later; other movies that impressed me as a youngster have not held up to my memory. but i recently ventured to watch "underground" for the first time in somewhere twixt 30 and 40 years. guess what? this is a great movie! perfectly acted and scripted, and with a "tale of two cities"-inspired final moment as we realize (thru the message that only his to-be-executed brother can grasp) that the struggle against the fascists will be carried forward. what i did not understand as a little kid, of course, is that this movie was made in 1941, BEFORE america had entered the war, and when sentiment in this country still allowed for loads of hitler sympathizers. director vincent sherman, later a victim of the blacklist, turned a B movie programmer into a brilliant piece of agitprop. was this as good a movie as i remember? oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.