Company of Heroes

Sometimes scriptwriters or directors are so unfamiliar with the subject their are attempting to bring to their audience that it sticks out like a sore thumb, and when it is noticed the film looses all credibility. When is Hollywood going to learn that subtle accuracies in a movie add to the luster, and lack of same makes the viewer say "Hold on, what was that?" This film lost all credibility in the first ten minutes ... the first time a soldier kept calling a sergeant "Sir". Man, it just doesn't fly.

This is possibly one of the worst researched films I have ever seen. Within 10 minutes I had noticed a glaring number of historical discrepancies. The sniper is carrying a Russian SKS (on which the scope is wobbling horribly) instead of the 1903 Springfield or the sniper variant of the M1 Garand,the Sergeant is referred to as "sir" instead of Sergeant (only officers are "sir") several of the American soldiers are carrying British Enfield rifles instead of the M1 Garand which was standard issue to Army troops after 1943, the German machine gunners are using a Browning water-cooled machine gun instead of the MG42, and for heaven's sake, they didn't even have the Lieutenant's bars pinned on correctly. This movie is awful. Don't watch.

The often cited NAZI incapability of producing a nuclear weapon merely reflects the 1941-1943 "SchwerWasser" period, but that did not mean that they didn't look for possibilities to create one after that through other means. In the light of then existing German knowledge of nuclear physics, one could speculate that they could have been sweating neck-to-neck with the US efforts in that sense. They most certainly had the incentive for that and until April 30 1945 they never ceased pursuing to penetrate the US efforts.In the genre of 'speculative history' or 'alternative history' this movie is fine and definitely worth watching. Just my $0.02

A company of privates and corporals taking on an OSS mission? Seriously? Sooooo, they never even thought to discuss it with anyone higher up the chain of command than a Sergeant? Oh that's right they had no time - but they had time to sit in a train all the way to Stuttgart where the Germans were waiting? Wait, why were the Germans waiting in Stuttgart? They couldn't stop them on any of the many other stops along the way? The plot holes are enormous.I also love how Americans used British Enfield rifles, German Panzer, Panther and Tiger tanks were never in the movie only on the cover art. I don't know WHAT kind of cobbled together armored vehicles they used to try to pass off as German Tanks. Hilarious but sad

Every complaint I have seen about this film can be summarized as: "They got X wrong." First off, I would like to point out that the Nazi nuclear program did indeed have a facility in Haigerloch and that history shows they were uncomfortably close to finishing a bomb. But, we're not here about that. So, yes, there are many inaccuracies in this movie, but if you simply stop being picky about realism, the movie is quite good overall.

Requires suspension of disbelief at too many major points. German nuclear research is advanced to the point of prototype bombs, which the Nazis never achieved. Bomb is literally festooned with swastikas. Must be at least 10 of them! Who's going to see them? American soldiers smoke uncovered at night in a combat zone instead of exercising light discipline. Excellent way to get killed. Submachine guns, a short-range weapon, accurately mow down scores of Germans at incredible distances. Germans speaking among themselves shift between German and English. Stick to German for realism or don’t. Don't shift between the two. During the largest German offensive on the Western Front, an infantry team untrained in espionage penetrates 100 miles into Germany wearing German uniforms. They hook up with a Soviet POW. What's a Russian doing on the Western Front? In Stuttgart, German-uniformed Americans converse in English while dozens of Germans pass, yet arouse no suspicion. Their German Resistance contact is the beautiful daughter of Germany's top nuclear scientist. For the romantic-erotic factor, she strips for a bath in an open-door room, seemingly unaware she's in full view of love interest Private Burrows. American heavy bombers designed for high-altitude attacks come in at 200 feet, where they could be knocked from the sky by concussion from their own heavy ordnance. Private Burrows' security debriefing comes from a mere Lieutenant, as if this crucial assignment wouldn't merit a higher-ranking officer. And that Lieutenant? He served with Burrows' slain father during WWI -- yet in 1944, he's still a First Louie. Pretty poor officer to miss out on the fast-promotion track of two world wars. I'm not a stickler for extremely detailed historical accuracy, but this movie crosses the line in so many large ways. Watch it for the action. Don't expect to transported back to WWII. This ain't no "Saving Private Ryan."

This movie is what it is. As all productions coming out of Hollywood, this movie is purely for entertainment purposes. Do not look for "historical value" or accurate detail as this is not a documentary, nor was it promised as one. I approached it like all "movies" I watch, with an open mind as to what story the director is trying to tell me. This was a good story, with a decent plot and flowing timeline. Nothing more. If you want historical accuracy, subscribe to "American Heroes Channel" or "History". If you want to be entertained on a rainy afternoon in May, curl up with a good book.........or this movie.
Fiction. Not true at all. Germany wasn't even close to developing a nuclear weapon. Unrealistic battle scenes. Just weak all the way around.

REMEMBRANCE (THE FILM)

Even in real life you don't know what it was like when they met. Look up Jerzy Bielecki (his real name). Her real name is Cyla Cybulska. After the war Bielecki received the Righteous Among the Nations award and became an honorary citizen of Israel. He also co-founded and headed the postwar Christian Association of the Auschwitz Families. Cyla died in 2006. He died in Nowy Targ on 20 October 2011. He also has an autobiography. Maybe there is more information in there

I noticed right off the bat that the people depicted in this story are Jehovah's Witnesses by their purple triangles. And the ones with the yellow triangle and purple over it are Witnesses of Jewish heritage. That being said this story is therefore false and cannot be taken as serious. The Witnesses that were put into Nazi concentration camps had extremely high morals. All these men and women had to do was sign a document denouncing their faith and they would have been set free. Yet thousands of them would not do this and would rather be put into death camps than turn their back on their religion. Considering that they would go to such lengths to keep their faith in tact it seems completely unlikely that they would endure horrible treatment only to commit sins that go against their beliefs. Records and accounts from SS officers in the camps tell us that these men and women were dedicated to their faith and none of them attempted escape or caused any type of disturbance. Then you might reason that this is only a story about love enduring in difficult times. To which I would reply that if one wants to tell a story such as that, then perhaps they should have chosen a different setting. By using this time and place in history and depicting the people as something that they were not, as historical and personal account will testify, they are in fact insulting the people that lived through this horrific event and demeaning the stance that they took on behalf of their faith. Again history being altered to fit into the mold of Hollywood.

MANHUNT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Hunt_(1941_film)

Plot[edit]

On July 29, 1939, renowned British big game hunter Captain Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) slips through the forest undetected near the Berghof, Adolf Hitler's residence near Berchtesgaden. Getting the dictator in his telescopic sight, he pulls the trigger on his unloaded rifle and gives a wave. He ponders a moment, then loads a live round, but is discovered at the last second by a guard, and the shot goes wild.

After being beaten up, Thorndike is taken to Major Quive-Smith (George Sanders). Quive-Smith is also a devoted hunter and an admirer of Thorndike. Thorndike explains that it was a "sporting stalk", not to kill, but just for the thrill of going after the biggest game of all. The Nazi half-believes him, but insists he sign a confession that he was in fact working for His Majesty's government. When Thorndike refuses, he is tortured, but remains steadfast and warns of "questions being asked in high places" if he is killed, as his brother, Lord Risborough (Frederick Worlock), is a very important diplomat. The phrase gives Quive-Smith the idea to have Thorndike thrown off a cliff to make his death look like an accident.

Thorndike survives when his knapsack gets caught in a tree, breaking his fall. He eludes his German pursuers and reaches a port. He steals a rowboat, but is forced to abandon it hastily when a patrol boat comes near. He swims to a Danish ship about to sail for London. Vaner (Roddy McDowall), the English cabin boy, helps Thorndike hide. The Germans find Thorndike's coat and passport aboard the rowboat and search the nearby ship. Though they find nothing, they place agent Mr. Jones (John Carradine) on board using Thorndike's passport to continue looking even after the ship leaves the harbour.

Jones is met by German agents in London. Thorndike, mistakenly believing he is now safe, casually debarks and is spotted. He manages to shake off his pursuers by ducking into the apartment of Jerry Stokes (Joan Bennett), a young woman. Jerry lends him money so he can reach his brother.

When Lord Risborough tells his brother that the British government, continuing its pre-war policy of appeasement, would have to extradite him if he were found, Thorndike decides to hide in Africa. Jerry tries to refuse a large cash reward, leading Lady Risborough (Heather Thatcher) to assume that it is payment for other services, but Thorndike insists. He also buys her a new hatpin, as she had lost hers when they first met. She chooses a cheap chromium arrow and insists Thorndike present it to her. Thorndike likens it to her, saying both are "straight and shiny". By this point, Jerry is in love.

Quive-Smith arrives in London to join the hunt. When Thorndike calls on his solicitor, Saul Farnsworthy (Holmes Herbert), the Nazis are once again on his trail. Chased into a London Underground station, Thorndike struggles with Jones, who is killed when he is thrown onto an electrified rail.

Thorndike tells Jerry to have Lord Risborough send him a letter in three weeks time care of Lyme Regis Post Office. As in the novel, Thorndike hides in a cave. However, when he goes to pick up the letter, the postmistress (Eily Malyon) seems alarmed and sends a girl on an errand. Thorndike grabs the letter and beats a hasty retreat. Back at his cave, he finds the letter is from Quive-Smith, who has followed him to his lair.

Quive-Smith seals the only entrance and passes his quarry the confession and a pen through an air hole, threatening to leave him trapped inside. Quive-Smith also slides in Jerry's beret with the arrow pin, informing Thorndike that she was thrown out a window to her death when she would not betray him. They only discovered Thorndike's location through the address he had written down for her. Badgered by the Nazi, the grief-stricken Thorndike finally admits that he subconsciously intended to assassinate Hitler after all. He then agrees to sign the confession. Quive-Smith unblocks the entrance, but waits to shoot him as he crawls out. Thorndike however has other plans; he uses his belt, a slat from his bed, and a stick to fabricate a bow, using Jerry's pin as the tip of a makeshift arrow, and shoots the German through the air hole. When Thorndike emerges, Quive-Smith manages to wound him before dying. By the time Thorndike recovers, the war has started.

Thorndike joins the R.A.F. as a Bomber Command crewman. On a mission over Germany, Thorndike unexpectedly parachutes into the Reich with his hunting rifle to finish what he had started.

Films directed by Fritz Lang
Filmography
1919–1933	Halbblut Der Herr der Liebe The Spiders, Part 1 Harakiri The Spiders, Part 2 Das wandernde Bild Vier um die Frau Destiny Dr. Mabuse the Gambler Die Nibelungen: Siegfried Die Nibelungen: Kriemhilds Rache Metropolis Spione Woman in the Moon M The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
1934–1956	Liliom Fury You Only Live Once You and Me The Return of Frank James Western Union Man Hunt Moontide Hangmen Also Die! Ministry of Fear The Woman in the Window Scarlet Street Cloak and Dagger Secret Beyond the Door House by the River American Guerrilla in the Philippines Rancho Notorious Clash by Night The Blue Gardenia The Big Heat Human Desire Moonfleet While the City Sleeps Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
Later	The Tiger of Eschnapur The Indian Tomb The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse

Defiant Requiem

http://defiantrequiemfilm.com/story.php

STOCK FOOTAGE AND STILLS

CLICK HERE FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF ARTWORK FEATURED IN THE FILM

Terezin Memorial
International Committee Of The Red Cross
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Wiener Library Institute Of Contemporary History
Yivo Institute For Jewish Research
Steven Spielberg Film And Video Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Gift Of Julien Bryan Archive
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Courtesy Of Bernard And Emery Klein
Yad Vashem Photo Archives
Central State Archive For Photos & Films, Kiev
Bundesfilmarchiv/Transit Film Gmbh
Jewish Museum In Prague Photo Archive
The National Center For Jewish Film, At Brandeis University
Museum Of Jewish Heritage
National Museum Prague, Czech Republic
Jewish Museum Berlin, Permanent Loan Of Thomas Fritta-Haas
Katja Manor
Jan And Eva Rocek
Edgar Krasa
Zdenka Fantlova
Oddball Film & Video, San Francisco
Thought Equity Motion
Itn Source/ Reuters
Getty Images
Deutsches Filminstitut, Frankfurt

FILMMAKERS

DOUG SHULTZ - Director / Writer / Producer

Doug Shultz has been making award-winning documentary films for over 15 years, on subjects ranging from history to science to the environment. He recently wrote, produced and directed the Peabody Award-winning film Silence of the Bees, which also garnered four Emmy nominations, and he produced and directed the Emmy-winning series CIA Confidential for National Geographic. Other recent films include the Nature specials Cuba: The Accidental Eden and The Loneliest Animals. DEFIANT REQUIEM is his first feature film.

PETER SCHNALL - Producer / Director of Photography / Executive Producer

Peter Schnall is a seven-time Emmy Award and recent Peabody Award-winner who has been making distinctive films and documentaries for more than twenty years. After nearly ten years as an independent, Peter began a 6-year stint as Producer and Senior Producer of the long-running National Geographic Television weekly series Explorer. In 1996 Peter left National Geographic Television to form Partisan Pictures in New York City. His last feature documentary This is a Game, Ladies won the Audience Award at the AFI Silverdocs Film Festival. 

MARK FASON - Editor

Mark is a Peabody Award-winning, Emmy-nominated editor who has been creating distinctive documentary films for the last 15 years. In that time, he's worked with many acclaimed filmmakers including Spike Lee, Oscar winning director Ross Kauffman, seven-time Emmy Award-winning director Peter Schnall as well as Emmy and Peabody award-winner Doug Shultz. Mark's unique combination of storytelling has been integral to many marquee projects for a wide range of esteemed clients including the PBS series NATURE, HBO SPORTS, National Geographic, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, MTV, A&E, The Museum on Natural History and the Wildlife Convervation Society.

WHITNEY JOHNSON - Executive Producer

In her role as Vice-President of Production at Partisan Pictures, Whitney has managed over 100 hours of programming, including the Peabody-award winning documentary, Silence of the Bees for PBS/Nature and the Emmy-winning series CIA Confidential for the National Geographic Channel. Other notable films include National Geographic's On Board Air Force One and the PBS special Through a Dog's Eyes. Before joining Partisan, Whitney worked as an Associate Producer for Elizabeth Arledge on the Emmy-winning film The Forgetting, a PBS special on Alzheimer's Disease; Cracking the Code of Life, NOVA's 2-hour special about the race to decode the human genome; and the ABC/Peter Jennings' Production, Out of Control; AIDS in Black America which won a George Foster Peabody Award.

MURRY SIDLIN - Music Director

Murry Sidlin is the creator/conductor of DEFIANT REQUIEM The Live Performance,  which was the inspiration and genesis for this film.  He has conducted 17 performances of Defiant Requiem Live in such cities as Jerusalem, Budapest, Washington, D.C., three times at Terezin, and Houston. Over the next musical season he will perform this concert/drama in Atlanta, Baltimore, New York's Lincoln Center, and in Prague.  He is an internationally recognized conductor, teacher, lecturer, and is the founder and president of the Defiant Requiem Foundation. He has been decorated by the Archbishop of Prague for his contributions to the illumination of the Terezin legacy.

ADINA PLISKIN - Associate Producer

A painter and photographer, Adina began working in film a few years ago as a production assistant on the Nature special Cuba, The Accidental Eden. She also worked as Associate Producer on the series Blue Collar Dogs and the special Manila Hostage Crisis for National Geographic. DEFIANT REQUIEM is her first feature film.

ARROW

ARROW

The memorial performance of Verdi's Requiem in Terezin

Conductor Murry Sidlin leads Soprano Sharon Christman and choir in a performance of Verdi's Requiem in Terezin.

Danny and Rafi Krasa lift their father Edgar Krasa, who was Raphael Schachter's roommate and a choir member during their time in Terezin.



Nazi officers about to watch a performance of Verdi's Requiem in a scene from the film

"Know before whom you stand." A wall of the secret synagogue, Terezin.

HOME STORY TRAILER PHOTOS FILMMAKERS CREDITS PRESS SCREENINGS CONTACT

STORY

DEFIANT REQUIEM tells the little-known story of the Nazi concentration camp, Terezin. Led by imprisoned conductor Rafael Schächter, the inmates of Terezin fought back...with art and music. Through hunger, disease and slave labor, the Jewish inmates of Terezin hold onto their humanity by staging plays, composing opera and using paper and ink to record the horrors around them.

This creative rebellion reaches its peak when Schächter teaches a choir of 150 inmates one of the world's most difficult and powerful choral works, Verdi's Requiem, re-imagined as a condemnation of the Nazis. The choir would ultimately confront the Nazis face to face... and sing to them what they dare not say.

For over ten years, conductor Murry Sidlin has dreamed of bringing the Requiem back to Terezin. Now, through soaring concert footage, powerful survivor recollections, cinematic dramatizations and evocative animation, DEFIANT REQUIEM brings the incredible story of this artistic uprising to life.

MAN HUNT, FROM THE BOOK ROGUE MALE

http://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1506

Mon 28 Sep 2009

A Movie Review by David L. Vineyard: MAN HUNT (1941.)

Posted by Steve under Reviews , Suspense & espionage films
[4] Comments 

A MOVIE REVIEW BY DAVID L. VINEYARD:         

MAN HUNT. 20th Century-Fox, 1941. Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, Roddy McDowall, John Carradine. Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, based on the novelRogue Male by Geoffrey Household. Director: Fritz Lang.

   Few books catch the public imagination the way Geoffrey Household’s classic novel of chase and pursuitRogue Male did. It was a best-selling phenomenom and became one of the classic thrillers of all time, near the top of everyone’s list of the best thrillers ever written.

   It was natural it would come to film, and luckily for all concerned, it did so at the hands of one of the greatest directors in film history, Fritz Lang.

   Fritz Lang was a legendary German director who fled Nazi Germany by the skin of his teeth, so Rogue Malewas a natural project for him — how could he resist the tale of a big game hunter who decides on a lark to stalk the most dangerous game of all — Adolf Hitler.

   It should be noted Rogue Male was written before the war broke out in September 1939, so Household never specifically says in the novel that his hero is stalking Adolf Hitler, merely an unnamed European dictator.

   As if the public couldn’t figure it out.

   Especially at novel’s end, when the hero vows to finish the job.

   When the war did break out, at least one British general, who himself was a big game hunter, had to be talked out of trying to duplicate Household’s novel in the real world.

   Bringing the book to the screen was no easy task. The novel, written in the first person, is a curiously compelling and believable work. It reads like the actual memoir of the narrator and builds incredible suspense.

   Finding the right actor to play the lead was vital. It needed someone stalwart and serious yet human and likable — after all, the United States was not in the war, and this was a film about assassinating the leader of another country. Warner Brothers may have fired the opening salvo with Confessions of a Nazi Spy, but not all Americans were convinced the war was any of our business. Pearl Harbor would soon change that, but not yet.

   Which is why Walter Pidgeon was the ideal choice to play the lead, that sane, strong, yet gently humorous Canadian actor who in Mrs. Miniver would shortly become the very icon of calm British courage in the face of incredible odds. The simple fact that Pidgeon was the man behind the telescopic sites let the viewer know that he was not only the hero, but he was justified in his actions.

   The existence of actors like Pidgeon was one of the strengths of the old studio star system. His very presence told the audience as much as any dialogue could reveal.

   The film opens with Pidgeon in what is obviously Germany, near what is obviously Hitler’s Bavarian escape Berchtesgarten. Pidgeon, a famous British hunter, is hunting stags when he realizes where he is, and for reasons he can’t explain decides to see if he could get a clear shot at the dictator. Not that he would ever pull the trigger …

   But when he is caught it isn’t so easy to explain. The Germans, particularly George Sanders, are sure he is a British agent, and even if he isn’t, the provocation of a Brit caught trying to kill the Fuehrer is to good to pass up. They beat and torture him, and then plan to dump his body, but he outwits them and escapes.

   Now the manhunt is on. Pidgeon is hidden on a boat traveling to England and aided by a cabin boy (Roddy McDowall who teamed with Pidgeon in John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley).

   He arrives in England only to find there is no where to turn and no one to help him. He can’t go to the police and he soon finds Sanders and his men in England are on his trail.

   He’s trapped in a nightmare and can’t wake up. His brother wants nothing to do with him, the government would just as soon he go away, the police would as soon arrest him, and he is actively being hunted by enemy agents in his own country.

   After a narrow escape in the London underground with sinister John Carradine, Pidgeon knows his only hope is to go to ground in the wild, where he has a chance based on his survival skills. It’s a splendidly shot sequence that reminds of Lang’s brilliant use of shadow and light in his silent work.

But he needs help, and that comes in the form of Joan Bennett, a prostitute he has picked up in escaping the German agents. (Production code or not the movie is pretty obvious what Bennett’s profession is.) Though she is clearly from another class he is charmed by her, and she by his gentlemanly ways. She agrees to help him, and he in return arranges to help her escape her life.

   He arranges with his solicitor, one of the few friends he can rely on, to help her while he is in hiding. In the novel the solicitor is Jewish, in the film that’s never exactly said, though perhaps subtly implied.

   The scenes between Pidgeon and Bennett are touching and human. When he leaves her he gives her a little token, A pin, a metal arrow, to remember him by.

   As you might guess, that pin is going to be important.

   Meanwhile after a tearful goodbye in the fog on Tower bridge (and an infamous mistake that puts Parliament on the wrong side of the Thames), Pidgeon heads for the country and finds a small cave he converts into a hideout sets out to keep a low profile.

   But Sanders is hot on his trail and tracks him down. Now Pidgeon is pinned in his little hideout with Sanders outside promising to let him live if he will just sign a confession he intended to kill Hitler. And to break Pidgeon’s will he produces proof there is no hope.

   The arrow pin Sanders took from Bennett when he tortured and killed her to find out where Pidgeon was hiding.

   But Pidgeon didn’t go to ground because it would make him defenseless. He may be trapped but he still has his mind. Using a board from his bed, some rope, his belt, a stick and the arrow pin, Pidgeon builds a makeshift crossbow.

   If he can only lure Sanders to the small opening by pretending to sign the confession — before Sanders kills him.

   The film ends with Pidgeon enlisted after the war starts in the RAF. But on a mission over Germany he produces his hunting rifle and parachutes from the plane. This time he will hunt the beast from rooftops, not forests, and this time we are assured, he won’t miss.

   The novel ends somewhat differently in that we learn that the narrator unconsciously intended to kill the dictator all along. His lover was killed in the Spanish Civil War, but as in the film the book ends as he returns to Germany determined this time to finish the job he began.

   It’s hard to gauge just how comforting that thought was to millions of Brits and Americans, the idea that somewhere in Germany one lone man with a gun was stalking the biggest monster of them all. The book was an international sensation and many actually believed a British big game hunter was loose in Europe stalking the German dictator. It was no longer a novel or a film, it had become an urban legend.

   Rogue Male was remade under its original title by Clive Donner with Peter O’Toole as the hunter and Sir John Standing in the Sanders role. It was an excellent film, somewhat closer to the novel than the Lang version and featuring one of the last performances of Alistair Sim.

   Geoffrey Household went on to write many classic novels of chase and pursuit including Watcher In the Shadows, The Courtesy of Death, Dance of the Dwarfs, and not long before his death the long awaited sequel to Rogue Male, Rogue Justice, which for the first time reveals the characters name and follows his mission in Nazi Germany and his final fate in post war Africa. It is one of the few sequels worthy of the original.

   But nothing could recreate the impact of Rogue Male or the Fritz Lang film version,Man Hunt. At a time when the world seemed to have gone mad and the forces of darkness threatened to overwhelm the forces of decency and hope, the idea that somewhere one sane man opposed the darkness, alone and with a gun from the shadows and rooftops, filled a need for hope and a spirit of resistance.

Tue 29 Sep 2009

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS review: GEOFFREY HOUSEHOLD – Rogue Male.

Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews
[5] Comments 

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review
by Bill Pronzini:

GEOFFREY HOUSEHOLD – Rogue Male. Little Brown, hardcover, 1939. UK edition: Chatto & Windus, hc, 1939. Also published as Man Hunt: Triangle, US, hc, 1943. Reprinted many times in both hardcover and soft, including Bantam #9, 1946, w/dust jacket (shown); Pyramid R930, 1963.

Film: TCF, 1942, as Man Hunt (with Walter Pidgeon, George Sanders, Joan Bennett; reviewed here by David L. Vineyard.

   Rogue Male caused quite a stir in both England and the United States when it was first published. It is the story of one man’s private war with Hitler and the Gestapo, although neither is mentioned by name.

   But it is much more than that, else its popularity would not have survived the war years: It has been almost constantly in print over the past five decades. The Saturday Review of Literature said, “You are not likely to find a better adventure story.” And the New York Times called it “an overpowering tour de force … spare, tense, desperately alive.” Those superlatives still apply today.

   The novel is told in the form of a first-person journal whose author is never identified. We know only that he is a famous and well-to-do British sportsman whose name is widely known and who has been “frequently and unavoidably dishonored by the banners and praises of the penny press.”

   In the days before full-scale war in Europe, this man set out alone on a hunting trip in Poland, and it occurred to him there that it might be his greatest challenge to stalk a different kind of game for a change — human game.

   Not to kill, of course; he is not a psychopath. He wants only to get close enough to a certain heavily guarded dictator to place the man in the cross hairs of his rifle’s telescopic sight.

   And this he does, being a superb and wily outdoorsman: He comes within a finger pressure of ridding Europe of its greatest tyrant. But he doesn’t fire; and because he doesn’t, he is caught and brutally tortured.

   He tells his captors the truth, but they don’t believe him. And even if they do, it doesn’t matter; he must be killed to prevent the truth from leaking out and others trying the same thing.

   They put him over a cliff to make his death took like an accident. Only he doesn’t die; he survives the fall. And even though he is more animal than man at first, unable to use his hands (they have been mangled by his tormentors) and with his left eye a bloody horror, he still manages to make his arduous way to a seaport and stowaway on board a ship bound for England.

   Once he arrives, however, his ordeal hasn’t ended; it has only just begun.

   He knows that agents of the tyrant will be sent after him, knows that his only hope of survival is to disappear completely and without a trace. He makes financial arrangements with the solicitor in charge of his estate, then leaves London.

   But at the Aldwych train station he is accosted by an enemy agent and has no choice but to kill the man. As a result, he becomes a fugitive from the British police as well. He flees to a remote part of Dorset, covering his tracks as he travels, and quite literally goes to ground: He digs out an undetectable burrow inside an isolated hedgerow.

   You might think he is safe then; so did he. But he isn’t. He makes one mistake that leads the enemy agents and the police to his vicinity and forces him to live like a mole inside his burrow for days on end. And when he emerges, it is to kill again, and to vow to return to the tyrant’s country and once more put the man in the cross hairs of his rifle, and this time to pull the trigger.

   This is a nightmarish novel, filled with breathless chases, fascinating detail-work, and images that will haunt you for days after reading. If you like chase/adventure stories and you haven’t yet read Rogue Male, do yourself a favor. You won’t be disappointed.

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright � 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

ly·can·thro·py

  [lahy-kan-thruh-pee]  Show IPA

noun

1.

a delusion in which one imagines oneself to be a wolf or otherwild animal.

2.

the supposed or fabled assumption of the appearance of a wolfby a human being.

1. David Vineyard Says:
   September 29th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
   I’m not sure Household cared about those things all that much. His favorite type of book was the picaresque, and he wrote several including Fellow Passenger and The Life and Times of Bernardo Brown. His short story “Taboo” is considered a classic horror story on the subject of lycanthropy, and his novel The Sending was chosen one of the 100 best fantasy novels — not bad for a writer then close to his eighties.
   His first book, The Third Hour, was compared to Stevenson and Conrad. Other than Rogue Male I would rate The High Place, A Rough Shoot, A Time to Die, Olura, Watcher in the Shadows, The Courtesy of Death, Dance of the Dwarfs, Fellow Passenger, The Life and Times of Bernardo Brown, Rogue Justice, and The Sending as among the best thrillers ever written, and honestly can’t say I ever read a bad book or story by the man.
   Truthfully there was usually only one character in a Household novel, the narrator, though the heroine of Olura is haunting, and Quive-Smith in Rogue Male is well drawn as is the hero Roger Taine in Rough Shoot and his questionable ally.
   But I will agree with Dan that no one ever wrote about the chase quite like Household. there is a haunting quality to his best work that is mindful of Stevenson or Buchan and quite unlike any other writer today. Even his lesser books like The Three Sentinels are worth reading. And if you have never read his collected short stories you owe yourself the treat.