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Incredibly rich Samuel Thornton (Russell Hicks), an American patriot, puts out
a contract on Hitler (Bobby Watson), promising 1 million Dollar in cash to the
man who kills the dictator. As it happens mobsters Steve Maschik (Ward Bond),
Dutch (Warren Hymer) & Book (Paul Fix) have just been released from
Alcatraz & are looking for work that doesn't differ too much from what they
have done previously, so Thornton's offer seems just like a gift from heaven.
The trio soon enlists in the Canadian Air Force & are sent to Enlgland,
where they hijack the bomberplane of pilot Johnny Stevenson (Bruce Edwards)
& parachute over Germany.
In Germany they promptly steal a beer truck, but nevertheless they are soon
apprehended by the German police & broght to the Dachau concentration camp.
However, Steve uses his streetwise charm to convince Dachau's commander Hecht
(Felix Basch) that they have a message to deliver to Hitler personally
(carefully forgetting to mention that the message is a bullet in the head of
course), & Hecht, though throwing them in a cell all the same, can't risk
doing them any harm.
But then there's Hecht's girlfriend Else Von Brandt (Dorothy Tree), who is
really Rosebud, a woman who regularly frees British POW's from Dachau, &
she helps Steve, Butch, Book & Johnny (who only gradually grows wise to
what the gangster trio is actually up to) escape from Dachau, even if Dutch has
to give his life in the process. However, once Else has learned what they are
up to, she is reluctant to help our heroes, as she thinks one Hitler more or
less wouldn't end the war. But Steve can nevertheless con her into taking him,
Johnny, Book & Meier (Frederick Giermann) - a doctor & the only
man who knows what Hitler looks like under his mustache (so to tell him apart
from his doubles) - to a gardenparty attended by Hitler as her musicians ...
& there Steve can really grab the chance to take Hitler as hostage, however
he won't shoot him & instead wants to force the Germans to end the war,
while he ensures a safe getaway for pilot Johnny & Else. However, once they
have flown off in Hitler's private plane, & Steve has shaved Hitler, things
get out of hand, as the Germans do no longer recognize their Führer in that
shaved little man, instead mistake him for one of Steve's accomplices, &
shoot not only Steve but also Hitler (the real one) like the dog he is.
The war however, doesn't stop here ...
Millionaire Thornton though has, in awe, seen Steve's act of patriotism,
& has invested the million thought for Steve into bomberplanes ...
Quite obviously this is a propaganda film, so it's about as subtle as my
synopsis might seem, & as a comedy it is - quite naturally, for a
propaganda film - not all that great. It is some fun however for the sheer
bluntness of hammering its message home, & for the very naive look onto
wartime politics & war s such.
Bobby Watson by the way, the man who portrayed Hitler, did so in a string of
propaganda movies (starting in 1942 with The Devil with Hitler by
Gordon Douglas), & even returned to the role in 1957 (The Story of
Mankind by Irwin Allen) & 1961 (the Danny Kaye-Comedy On the Double,
by Melville Shavelson).
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