Tue 17 Jan 2012
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: THEY DARE NOT LOVE (1941).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[6] Comments
THEY DARE NOT LOVE. Columbia, 1941. George Brent, Martha Scott, Paul Lukas, Frank Reicher, Egon Brecher, Roman Bohnen, Peter Cushing, Lloyd Bridges. Director: James Whale (with Victor Fleming & Charles Vidor, both uncredited). Shown at Cinecon 39, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2003.
I was very pleased to find Whale’s last feature film on the program. George Brent is an Austrian aristocrat who leaves his country ahead of the Nazis. Living in London, he encounters Scott and comes into contact with Austrian emigres who make him realize he was wrong to betray his countrymen by fleeing.
He meets with his old adversary, Nazi Paul Lukas, and works out an agreement that will exchange his freedom for some imprisoned Austrians. The agreement is a ruse, and as he and Scott set sail on what he believes to be a neutral Dutch ship, it mounts a German flag and he is a prisoner on his way to a certain death.
Maltin lambasts the film for its silly script and unlikely casting of Brent as a “dashing” Austrian prince. Dashing he’s not, but in spite of the inadequacies of the script and the lack of the usual Whale flourishes, the film is competently directed.
Reicher is good as the ship’s captain who’s finally willing to sacrifice himself (and probably his family) to thwart Lukas. Cushing and Bridges have small roles, but Cushing makes a dashing appearance as a British office who takes over the German ship and saves the day.
Not a sad, but still a disappointing conclusion to a distinguished directing career.
January 17th, 2012 at 5:26 am
Not EVERYTHING the allied propaganda -machine churned out, was a Casablanca, evidently.
The Doc
January 17th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
It wasn’t a propaganda machine. We were genuinely at war with a bunch bastards. And we won because lots of us felt that way.
January 17th, 2012 at 9:07 pm
My sentiments are with you, Barry, one hundred percent, but in 1941 we weren’t at war yet, and the general public didn’t know then everything we know now.
I don’t know how much Hollywood was involved, and whether this movie and others was part of it (quite probably so), and maybe your words could have been better chosen, Doc, but in the early 1940s there was a concerted effort by the US government to help convince people that war was coming, whether they wanted it or not.
See http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/ww2/american/amerprop.htm, for example.
This particular piece ends with:
“During World War II, America produced some of the most successful propaganda campaigns in history. The pushes for increased production, labor, and conservation may well have won the war for America.”
UPDATE: 06-17-19. It has been pointed out to me that the link above is no longer active, but the paragraph I quoted is of course still relevant.
January 19th, 2012 at 7:33 am
As for the film, itself, as Walter notes, it’s sad to see a stylist like Whale turn out such an ordinary film.
January 19th, 2012 at 2:13 pm
From the little I’ve read about the film so far, apparently Whale wasn’t able to finish it. I’ll have to find out more, if I can.
January 19th, 2012 at 9:56 pm
From an interview with screenwriter Charles Bennett, James Whale lasted only a week on the film before he was fired by Harry Cohn.
http://books.google.com/books?id=esCnTSqGtUYC&pg=PA21&dq=james+whale+they+dare+not+love&hl=en&sa=X&ei=z9YYT_fOAoa3sQK0wYSvCw&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=james%20whale%20they%20dare%20not%20love&f=false