The Seventh Cross *** (1944, Spencer Tracy, Signe Hasso, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Agnes Moorehead, Felix Bressart, George Macready, George Zucco, Steven Geray) – Classic Movie Review 9994

Director Fred Zinnemann’s 1944 The Seventh Cross in an engrossing, intelligent, studio-bound escape adventure, with the excellent actors fleshing out intriguing characters.

Spencer Tracy is at his best as George Heisler, one of seven men who escape from a German concentration camp in 1936, and seeks his freedom in Holland.

Also among the plush cast there is real-life married acting couple Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn as Liesel and Paul Roder, as well as Signe Hasso as Toni, the love interest for Tracy.

There is plenty of suspense and drama built into Helen Deutsch’s screenplay (from Anna Seghers’s novel), though it angered some people in the heat of World War Two wartime by daring to acknowledge that, among the enemy, there were good as well as bad Germans. It is also significant as one of very few films made during World War Two dealing with Nazi Germany concentration camps.

Just judged as drama, there is also commendably tense direction from Zinnemann.

Cronyn was Oscar nominated as Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

Also in the attractive cast are Agnes Moorehead, Felix Bressart, George Macready, George Zucco, Steven Geray, Herbert Rudley, Ray Collins, Alexander Granach, Katherine Locke, Paul Guilfoyle, Kurt Katch, Kaaren Verne, Konstantin Shayne, George Suzanne, John Wengraf, Steven Muller, Eily Maylon, Fay Wall, Robert Blake, Hugh Beaumont and William Challee.

The Seventh Cross is directed by Fred Zinnemann, runs 111 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by Helen Deutsch, from Anna Seghers’s novel, is shot in black and white by Karl Freund, is produced by Pandro S Berman, is scored by Roy Webb, and is designed by Cedric Gibbons and Leonid Vasian.

Zinnemann’s father was an Austrian Jewish doctor. Zinnemann became a naturalized American citizen in 1936. The Seventh Cross was his first big-budget film. Tracy and Zinnemann admired each other but did not get on too well. In 1958, Zinnemann was set to direct Tracy in The Old Man and the Sea, but they fell out over Zinnemann’s plan to make most of the film at sea in a fishing boat, and Zinnemann quit the movie.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9994

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