In this case, the Reich has taken over Czechoslovakia, and for Czech piano player Francis Lederer, that's an instant tragedy because he can't play the beautiful music of his favorite non-German composers. This leads to the powerful scene when Lederer is being accused of defying German orders with threat of arrest and he tells the German officer that he hates the music of other nationalities because it's beautiful and the Nazi code does not believe in anything beautiful, only ugly.
It's that truth that guides this important yet forgotten World War II melodrama to its message as Lederer finds out when he becomes a refugee in Guadalupe where he finds the same feeling from the nasty J. Carrol Naish, showing hatred of the music that Lederer plays, showing no emotion outside his playing.
Naish snarls with a joker like laugh, reminding me of Claude Rains at his maddest in "The Invisible Man". His cackling and ill treatment of everyone around him (including a nephew who loves to whistle) shows a man either made mad from the war (and believing Lederer to be crazy) or an already rotted soul, a sign that Nazi like evil has not left the earth even though the Nazi's were no longer in power.
This is an engrossing independently made war drama with a mesmerizing performance by Lederer who had played his own share of villains and here does seem like he could snap and kill at any minute. The photography is terrific, and the editing really tight. The music is nicely scored, and it really says something about the Germans seen here being angry over music that they couldn't claim as theirs. This is one of those war movies that really makes you think and shows that just because the physical war is over, the war inside really is never over.
It's that truth that guides this important yet forgotten World War II melodrama to its message as Lederer finds out when he becomes a refugee in Guadalupe where he finds the same feeling from the nasty J. Carrol Naish, showing hatred of the music that Lederer plays, showing no emotion outside his playing.
Naish snarls with a joker like laugh, reminding me of Claude Rains at his maddest in "The Invisible Man". His cackling and ill treatment of everyone around him (including a nephew who loves to whistle) shows a man either made mad from the war (and believing Lederer to be crazy) or an already rotted soul, a sign that Nazi like evil has not left the earth even though the Nazi's were no longer in power.
This is an engrossing independently made war drama with a mesmerizing performance by Lederer who had played his own share of villains and here does seem like he could snap and kill at any minute. The photography is terrific, and the editing really tight. The music is nicely scored, and it really says something about the Germans seen here being angry over music that they couldn't claim as theirs. This is one of those war movies that really makes you think and shows that just because the physical war is over, the war inside really is never over.