None Shall Escape **** (1944, Marsha Hunt, Alexander Knox, Henry Travers) – Classic Movie Review 7,539

The 1944 war film None Shall Escape was made during World War Two but it is set in a post-war Nuremberg-style war crimes trial. Alexander Knox plays Wilhelm Grimm, the Nazi officer on trial.

‘I would rather die than be forced into a Nazi Officer’s Club!’ Director André De Toth’s 1944 wartime film None Shall Escape was the first to depict the horrors of the Holocaust and harsh realities of World War Two. It is ‘The first shockingly dramatic story of the trial of the war criminals’.

However, it is advertised as ‘The most prophetic picture of our time’, for, as the opening credits prologue, explains: ‘The time of this story is the future. The war is over. As we promised, the criminals of this war have been taken back to the scenes of their crimes for trial. In fact, as our leaders promised – None Shall Escape.’

Though made during World War Two, the film is set after the war at a war crimes trial. The film examines the ideology of Nazism through flashbacks into the life of a monstrous Nazi officer, Wilhelm Grimm (Alexander Knox), who returns to the village he grew up in to punish the people who had rejected him for his beliefs. His evil career is shown as the flashbacks from his Nuremberg-style trial as a war criminal.

It is seen from various points of view: those of Catholic priest Father Warecki (Henry Travers), Grimm’s brother Karl (Erik Rolf) and Marja Pacierkowski (Marsha Hunt), to whom Grimm was engaged.

None Shall Escape was an important and brave film for Hollywood to attempt in 1944, not as brilliant or devastating as Roberto Rossellini’s later Germany Year Zero (1948), but filled with honest disgust and despair at the evil which man is capable of venting upon his fellow human beings. Made by Columbia Pictures, it is the first feature film about Nazi atrocities against the Jews.

The original story that the screenplay was based on deservedly received an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Original Story (Alfred Neumann, Joseph Than), and screenwriter Lester Cole might have deserved a nomination too.

The film however was the idea of Columbia Pictures’ producer Sam Bischoff, inspired by President Franklin D Roosevelt’s statement on 21 August 1942 that the Allies were collecting information about the Nazi leaders responsible for war atrocities, to prosecute them after the war.

The dedicated acting is excellent all round, especially from Alexander Knox, and Lee Garmes’s black and white cinematography is outstanding, too.

Also in the cast are Marsha Hunt, Henry Travers, Dorothy Morris, Richard Crane, Erik Rolfe, Richard Hale, Ruth Nelson, Kurt Kreuger, Shirley Mills, Elvin Field, Trevor Bardette, Frank Jaquet, Ray Teal, Art Smith, George Lessey, Arno Frey, Hank Worden, and Felix Basch.

It was shot from August 31, 1943 to October 26, 1943, more than 18 months before the war in Europe ended. It was released on February 3, 1944.

Park Circus presented a brand new 4K restoration from Sony Pictures at the 2018 BFI London Film Festival. It was the UK premiere of the restoration.

Wilhelm Grimm was also the name of one of the children’s fairy tale writing brothers.

Andre de Toth was filming newsreels in Hungary when the Germans invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 and was sent to cover the fighting on the German-Polish front.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7,539

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