Well, this is a movie about Germany in the 1930s, released in 1944, when Germany had already established its international identity. So it's no surprise that when Paul Lukas takes his family from San Francisco to Munich in search of some paintings to be sent back to his Jewish partner at their art gallery, many of the Germans turn out to be swine.
So it's dated and a few characters are stereotypes, but it's not at all a stupid movie, not a flag waver, with the Nazi brutes waving pitchforks, beating hell out of the racially impure, and goose-stepping down the cobblestone streets under swastikas. As a matter of fact, there isn't a swastika in sight. No Nazi helmets either. A couple of Jewish windows are broken, but that's the only violence we see.
That, and the cinematography and the twist at the end, make it a little outstanding for what it is.
It's a tragic story. The immigrant Germans Lukas and his partner, Morris Carnovsky, are the best of friends as well as partners in San Francisco. Lukas' son, Peter van Eyck, and Carnovsky's daughter, K. T. Stevens, put off their marriage so that she can accompany Lukas back to the Old Country and pursue her acting career. She's eager but van Eyck is desolate because he's deeply in love with her.
Once in Munich, Lukas finds the Old Country changed and is swept up in the Nazi movement -- too quickly, if you ask me. He takes a position in the bureaucracy and becomes stiff and distant. He cuts off communication with his Jewish partner and follows all the orders of the local authorities. When Carnovsky's daughter, Stevens, is pursued because she's Jewish and pounds on Lukas' door, he turns her away. Shots are fired and she dies. But we don't see it. Like the trembling Lukas, we just hear it through the closed door. How many directors would give up a chance to underscore what doesn't need to be underscored, just to give the audience some action and blood? It's a nice adult touch.
There are a surprising number of such touches. Back home, when Carnovsky and van Eyck receive a brief formal letter from Lukas, informing them that Stevens is dead, Carnovsky slumps in his chair. Van Eyck stands next to him, reaches out a hand to place on his shoulder, then stops the movement, and the comforting hand turns into a fist. The gesture has a meaning but I'm not going to give it away.
The direction, lighting, photography, and some of the massive sets are unforgettable. The director, William Cameron Menzies, must have recently binged on Fritz Lang -- "Metropolis" certainly, and maybe "Ministry of Fear," since one shot in "Address Unknown" is almost identical to one in Lang's movie. I'm not kidding. The visual images are striking. Menzies shoots from floor level in one scene. Stark shadows abound. Even a lighted hallway becomes menacing. And it's all totally unexpected in a quickly made 1944 movie with no bankable stars that tries to tell us an obsolescent moral tale about an individual's being corrupted by a corrupt culture.
The crap they're grinding out today should be half as well done.
So it's dated and a few characters are stereotypes, but it's not at all a stupid movie, not a flag waver, with the Nazi brutes waving pitchforks, beating hell out of the racially impure, and goose-stepping down the cobblestone streets under swastikas. As a matter of fact, there isn't a swastika in sight. No Nazi helmets either. A couple of Jewish windows are broken, but that's the only violence we see.
That, and the cinematography and the twist at the end, make it a little outstanding for what it is.
It's a tragic story. The immigrant Germans Lukas and his partner, Morris Carnovsky, are the best of friends as well as partners in San Francisco. Lukas' son, Peter van Eyck, and Carnovsky's daughter, K. T. Stevens, put off their marriage so that she can accompany Lukas back to the Old Country and pursue her acting career. She's eager but van Eyck is desolate because he's deeply in love with her.
Once in Munich, Lukas finds the Old Country changed and is swept up in the Nazi movement -- too quickly, if you ask me. He takes a position in the bureaucracy and becomes stiff and distant. He cuts off communication with his Jewish partner and follows all the orders of the local authorities. When Carnovsky's daughter, Stevens, is pursued because she's Jewish and pounds on Lukas' door, he turns her away. Shots are fired and she dies. But we don't see it. Like the trembling Lukas, we just hear it through the closed door. How many directors would give up a chance to underscore what doesn't need to be underscored, just to give the audience some action and blood? It's a nice adult touch.
There are a surprising number of such touches. Back home, when Carnovsky and van Eyck receive a brief formal letter from Lukas, informing them that Stevens is dead, Carnovsky slumps in his chair. Van Eyck stands next to him, reaches out a hand to place on his shoulder, then stops the movement, and the comforting hand turns into a fist. The gesture has a meaning but I'm not going to give it away.
The direction, lighting, photography, and some of the massive sets are unforgettable. The director, William Cameron Menzies, must have recently binged on Fritz Lang -- "Metropolis" certainly, and maybe "Ministry of Fear," since one shot in "Address Unknown" is almost identical to one in Lang's movie. I'm not kidding. The visual images are striking. Menzies shoots from floor level in one scene. Stark shadows abound. Even a lighted hallway becomes menacing. And it's all totally unexpected in a quickly made 1944 movie with no bankable stars that tries to tell us an obsolescent moral tale about an individual's being corrupted by a corrupt culture.
The crap they're grinding out today should be half as well done.