Man Hunt
Director: Fritz Lang
Year Released: 1941
Rating: 3.0
Marksman Capt. Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon), on 'vacation,' surprisingly finds Adolf Hitler himself within 500+ yards away but is unable to kill him - he's soon caught by the Nazis (including George Sanders' major), assaulted and left for dead, but he escapes, flees to England and is chased down. While the story could have ended by the fifteen minute mark with a bullet to Thorndike's head (the Nazis would have probably thought nothing of it), it allows Lang (who managed to get away from his native land) to indulge in a good bit of WWII-era paranoia and concern over the omnipresence of Nazi spies: no matter where Pidgeon goes, he's the one being hunted. Few can master the role of the sadist like Sanders could - he even throws in a few phrases in German, while Pidgeon (Canadian by birth), playing a Brit, doesn't even attempt an accent (which might have been for the best, since Joan Bennett's cockney accent is not exactly good).
