Product Details

• Actors: Bette Davis, Paul Lukas, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lucile Watson, Beulah Bondi
• Directors: Herman Shumlin
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Subtitles: English, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• Run Time: 112 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001709LD4
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,166 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

AN AUTHENTIC REGION 1 DVD FROM WARNER BROTHERS. Lillian Hellman's 1941 stage hit (adapted by Dashiell Hammett) retains its emotional and intellectual power in this suspenseful movie awarded the New York Film Critics 1943 Best Picture prize, and lauded as "a distinguished film, full of sense, power and beauty" by the NY Times. The praiseworthy film about standing up for what is right, at all odds, stars Paul Lukas repeating his Broadway triumph as Kurt Muller, a German underground leader who arrives with his family in Washington, DC and soon finds the tentacles of Nazi terror have a very long reach. Lukas' passionate performance earned him an Oscar, beating out Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca and Gary Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Bette Davis, who took on the film because she believed in its importance, portrays Muller's wife with ringing integrity. Lucile Watson as a socialite whose complacency is "shaken out of the magnolias" and George Colouris as a shady blackmailer also memorably reprise their stage roles. The film was nominated for 3 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. BONUS FEATURES: * Commentary by film historian Bernard F. Dick * Warner Night at the Movies 1943 short subjects gallery: o Vintage Newsreel o Musical short Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra o Classic cartoon The Wise Quacking Duck o Trailers of Watch on the Rhine and 1943's Mission to Moscow

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars PAUL LUKAS STEALS THE SHOW FROM BETTE..., November 6, 2001

By 

Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Watch on the Rhine [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a highly enjoyable, classic film based upon a Lillian Hellman play about the fight against facism during World War II, before Americans became embroiled in the war. The screenplay adaptation, which was co-authored by Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, is terrific. It tells the story of a German resistance leader, Kurt Muller, who comes to America, traveling incognito with his American born wife, Sarah, and three children, and visits his wife's wealthy mother and brother in their beautiful antebellum style mansion.

During their visit, they make the acquaintance of a Roumanian expatriate who is there as a house guest together with a his wife, a hometown girl and friend of the family. The Roumanian, a Nazi sympathizer, who frequently visits the German embassy, ultimately clashes with Muller, as irreconciable philosophical differences come to a head in a rousing climax.

Paul Lukas, who plays the noble freedom fighter with consummate dignity and passion, steals the show. A finer piece of acting is hard to find. He deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his heartfelt and heroic portrayal of Kurt Muller. It is, without a doubt, a performance to remember. Bette Davis plays it smart and gives a fine, though somewhat restrained, performance as a loyal and altruistic wife. She is luminous in the role.

Lucille Watson is marvelous as Sarah's dominant, generous, and larger than life mother. A very young and beautiful Geraldine Fitzgerald effectively plays the role of wife to the disreputable Roumanian expatriate, a wife disgusted with her husband's politics and lack of character, making her susceptible to the infinitely more alluring charms of Sarah's kind brother. The three childrem are stiff in their roles and, though affording some comic relief, are the only weakness in this otherwise compelling drama.

This is a marvelous movie that will appeal to those who love classic films. Fans of Bette Davis will also enjoy this film, provided that they do not expect a histrionic, over the top performance by Bette. This film is entirely, though quietly, dominated by Paul Lukas.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideologies Clash, March 22, 2003

By 

Martin Asiner (jersey city, nj United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Watch on the Rhine [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The events of December 7, 1941 propelled America into a war that had already been raging for two years. Hollywood responded with a series of big and bold war films that emphasized action and the personal heroism of its stars. WATCH ON THE RHINE was different in that the action was personal and verbal. Director Herman Shumlin took the successful play by Lillian Hellman and placed the battlegound in a living room where Paul Lukas and George Coulouris traded ideological body blows that became physical only in the final scene. Lukas and his wife Bette Davis are forced to leave Europe for the sanctuary of the United States, where they can live in the luxury of Bette Davis's wealthy mother. After arriving in America, Lukas enjoys his new surroundings but is also aware that his work of fighting Nazism is far from complete. George Coulouris is a Rumanian expatriate count with strong Nazi leanings who threatens to turn Lukas in should he return to Germany. The best parts of the film lie in the extended debates between Lukas, who extols the virtues of western democracy, and Coulouris, who maintains that Nazism is the inevitable end of European politics. The movie belongs squarely to Lukas, who was a deserved Oscar winner for Best Actor. For one of the few times in Bette Davis's career, she was content with a supporting role, yet she managed enough screen time as Lukas's devoted wife to indelibly etch herself in the audience's mind as a woman caught in the middle of the old world of European politics and the new one of America's. WATCH ON THE RHINE portrays a pre-Pearl Harbor America that allows a Nazi way of life to broadcast itself as an alternative to American democracy, and in so doing, affirms the superiority of a way of free life that lingers even unto today.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Paul Lukas' Finest Hour, April 28, 2000

By 

James L. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Watch on the Rhine [VHS] (VHS Tape)

For those expecting the usually exciting and florid performance from Bette Davis, this film may come as a bit of a surprise. Davis is subdued, but very effective, as the wife of an anti-fascist German freedom fighter during World War Two, who has come home to her family in Washington so that she, her husband, and her children may have a rest from the difficult and dangerous life they have been leading. Paul Lukas gives a sincere and quietly emotional performance as her heroic husband who must make some difficult decisions to protect his friends and family. Lucille Watson is terrific as Davis' strong and opinionated mother, while the young actors who portray the children are a bit stiff. The movie has a number of political speeches about anti-fascism that would have been appropriate since the film was released during the War, but the strong characters and drama of the story don't allow the speeches to dominate. Watch on the Rhine is an unusual film for Davis, but it is certainly a good one.