A great potray of the Furer by the actor,but I just can't see how anyone could of kept a strait face watching hitlers' mad rants and movements...I just bursted out laughing at how silly Hitler looked....so much like charlie chaplin!
shareI agree...was positively spooky the first time I watched it. He seemed so real...but terrifying. To think that this was the idiot that created so much tragedy, but he was guided by "the dark side of the force" and unstopable.
In Maria Von Trapps's biography she mentions their close brush with Hitler at a museum restaurant in Austria, and how mundane and ordinary he looked. Who would know what lay ahead...?
RSGRE
The depth of this performance goes beyond the appreciation expressed by the first two commentators. This portrayal of Hitler ranks among the very best that I've seen. It's a tricky part to play, because most actors can't resist dipping in the caricature direction -- we all know the Fuehrer was evil, so let's make sure to play him as a raging madman. Examples are Richard Basehart's over-the-top take in 1962's HITLER, and then there was that real extremely cartoonish version in, I guess what was the follow-up, to the TV mini-series, "The Winds of War." Perhaps there are more political reasons to make Hitler into an obvious psycho in the portrayals of recent American films (I stress "American," because an exception was provided by what I believe was the German-made "Downfall" film, where a Swiss actor played Hitler beautifully), because any nuance that allows Adolf to come across as a normal human (by normal, I mean one who doesn't go around raving and ranting all of the time; that quality, from his speeches, was mainly an act) might be construed as glamorization, and playing into the hands of the neo-Nazis. (One reason, I suppose, why recent films choose very ugly or weird looking actors to play Hitler, as with Tarantino's recent effort, whereas WWII films from the 1940s and 1950s were not afraid to go with a truer physical resemblance.)
But even though, by most reliable accounts, Hitler was mostly "normal" in his behavior behind the scenes, there must have surely been times when he went off his rocker, and that's what made Adler's performance really wonderful. Adler did not ignore the extremism and passion that went into the dictator's character, so we get a good taste of the raising of the voice and the exaggerated gestures. But the actor made sure to keep these elements in check, making sure to have Hitler come off as a real human being (which has a stronger effect to those who prefer to see him as a monster; it is not the monster who makes his monstrousness obvious that is frightening, but as Hannah Arendt put it, the Banality of Evil).
Adler wasn't on screen for too long, but he made the most of his opportunity; his Hitler came across as a very believable one.
Yes I agree with your interesting post,but he still made me chuckle a little bit!
shareWhen I first saw Adler as Hitler I laughed, for about half a second. He looked really ridiculous at first, then I was truly terrified by Adler's performance. It was so realistic, human and visceral. It was like Adler channeled Hitler's ghost or something. Every word he spoke was something you would think the real Hitler would say. I know this is a very old movie, but I was so satisfied for watching just to see Adler's performance. After I watched the movie I knew there was something about Luther Adler that would blow my freaking mind. And I found out He Was Jewish.
shareVery interesting to know that Adler was jewish. I thought he really put some thought behind his performance of Hitler which I thought was terrific. This movie has many excellent actors, even though the movie itself is not all that terrific with all the war reels that takes a lot of time of the movie itself.
shareWhose asses are you all trying to kiss? This was the worst portrayal of Hitler I've ever seen. It was amateurish at best.
shareWhose asses are you all trying to kiss? This was the worst portrayal of Hitler I've ever seen. It was amateurish at best.
His opening language aside, why are "Mad_Monkey"'s remarks about Adler's performance not serious? You may disagree, but those comments are fair. It was an awful, almost amateurish performance.
shareHis opening language was a good part of why I replied the way I did, so there is no reason to set it aside.
As for Adler's performance, it was the exact opposite: he has clearly studied Hitler's mannerisms, and in the two tiny scenes he appears he manages an excellent performance. Amateurish? Not on your life. Awful? You are entitled to your opinion, but I really do not see how the role could have been played better, or truer to the original.
Since we're having a raving argument on this topic on another thread, I'll say only that it's fair to comment on the poster's choice of language in one part and still ragrad his criticism as serious. His criticism was untainted by any untoward language.
"Amateurish" and "awful" perfectly capture Adler's dreadful performance. Yes, that's personal opinion -- just as your "rave" review of Adler is nothing more than personal opinion, not fact. The role of Hitler, however, while not large, was hardly "tiny", and in any case its importance has nothing to do with the amount of screen time Adler had. But Adler, true to the original? Nonsense. Robert Watson, Ludwig Donath, Richard Basehart, and Alec Guinness, to name only four (there are others) all played Hitler to much more effect, and with much more truth, than did Luther Alder in this film.
Adler played Hitler in another 1951 film called The Magic Face, in which he was a man who murdered Hitler and took his place [!]. I've never seen this movie, but the couple of reviews I've read say that the film is poor but Adler better. I'd like to see it, to compare with his weak Hitler portrayal in this film.
Adler also played Hitler in a Twilight Zone episode years later, but that was a very brief scene: he was a poor shopkeeper who is offered three wishes by a genie, but of course each wish comes with its own unintended consequences. For his last wish, Adler wants to be the ruler of any country in the 20th century, and is promptly whisked to the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin in 1945, having become Adolf Hitler and about to commit suicide. There wasn't much to that part, which lasted only a minute or so, but it was amusing.