This was a pretty good stab at what was going to happen to the Nazis - if they lost the war. However, as the film was made at the end of 1943 and not released until 1944 that was not necessarily a forgone conclusion.
Wilhelm Grimm (Alexander Knox) faces a war crimes trial after Germany has lost the war. The film doesn't suggest how that happened, but Grimm must answer for crimes we see in flashback as witnesses from his past give testimony.
Hitler is only mentioned a few times in the film and there is only one Heil Hitler salute. In a way Grimm represents Hitler, especially in his bitterness that Germany lost WW1 and the way he blames certain groups in Germany for the loss.
Through flashback we see him return to Lidzbark, now part of the newly established nation of Poland where he was a schoolteacher before the war.
Lidzbark seems idyllic. The Catholic priest and the Rabbi are friends and the people welcome Grimm back. The complexity of the population of pre-war Poland is hardly touched upon. Grimm comes to despise just about everyone anyway, even his fiancée, Marja played by Marsha Hunt, a beautiful actress, now aged 104.
He leaves the village after an incident involving a schoolgirl, which is hard to follow in the film because of the censorship of the day.
Through flashbacks we see Grimm embrace Nazi ideology to the point where he sends his own brother to a concentration camp. Finally he returns to Lidzbark as the SS administrator, a Reinhard Heydrich-like figure. Here he orders the deportation of the Jews, which turns into a massacre.
The film has powerful performances. "None Shall Escape" presented what was thought, and sometimes known, to be happening in Nazi occupied Europe. It joined similar films made during the war: "The Mortal Storm", "Hangman Also Die" and "Address Unknown". However these days some of them seem oddly like alternate reality.
Much of the dialogue in the film was hard to disguise as anything but speeches. Many of the filmmakers and the stars ended up blacklisted when WW2 morphed into the Cold War. Maybe some of the points of view acceptable in one era were enough to get you into trouble in another.
However it would be hard to argue that the portrayal of the Nazi regime in the film only scratched the surface of the true scale of the horror.
Wilhelm Grimm (Alexander Knox) faces a war crimes trial after Germany has lost the war. The film doesn't suggest how that happened, but Grimm must answer for crimes we see in flashback as witnesses from his past give testimony.
Hitler is only mentioned a few times in the film and there is only one Heil Hitler salute. In a way Grimm represents Hitler, especially in his bitterness that Germany lost WW1 and the way he blames certain groups in Germany for the loss.
Through flashback we see him return to Lidzbark, now part of the newly established nation of Poland where he was a schoolteacher before the war.
Lidzbark seems idyllic. The Catholic priest and the Rabbi are friends and the people welcome Grimm back. The complexity of the population of pre-war Poland is hardly touched upon. Grimm comes to despise just about everyone anyway, even his fiancée, Marja played by Marsha Hunt, a beautiful actress, now aged 104.
He leaves the village after an incident involving a schoolgirl, which is hard to follow in the film because of the censorship of the day.
Through flashbacks we see Grimm embrace Nazi ideology to the point where he sends his own brother to a concentration camp. Finally he returns to Lidzbark as the SS administrator, a Reinhard Heydrich-like figure. Here he orders the deportation of the Jews, which turns into a massacre.
The film has powerful performances. "None Shall Escape" presented what was thought, and sometimes known, to be happening in Nazi occupied Europe. It joined similar films made during the war: "The Mortal Storm", "Hangman Also Die" and "Address Unknown". However these days some of them seem oddly like alternate reality.
Much of the dialogue in the film was hard to disguise as anything but speeches. Many of the filmmakers and the stars ended up blacklisted when WW2 morphed into the Cold War. Maybe some of the points of view acceptable in one era were enough to get you into trouble in another.
However it would be hard to argue that the portrayal of the Nazi regime in the film only scratched the surface of the true scale of the horror.