Essential Cinema - 27

49th Parallel

ACTORS:
Richard George
Eric Portman
Raymond Lovell
Niall MacGinnis
Peter Moore
John Chandos
Basil Appleby
Laurence Olivier
Glynis Johns
Leslie Howard

DIRECTOR
Michael Powell

SCREENPLAY
Emeric Pressburger
Rodney Ackland

CINEMATOGRAPHER
Freddie Young




SYNOPSIS:
A shipwrecked U-boat crew hikes across Canada during 1941 in an attempt to make it back to the Fatherland.





CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER
Differences in ideology and lifestyle are contrasted by a band of Nazis and the down-home plains-folk they encounter as the Germans try and escape across North America. A propaganda film that is meant to show the differences between democracy and dictatorship.





PROS AND CONS
At first, I didn't know what to make of this film. It started a bit slow and didn't really seem to have a focus. Add to this, the early appearance of Laurence Oliver as a French-Canadian trapper who was a bit on the irritating side. This may have been accurate, since I haven't met many French-Canadian trappers. For all I know, they may indeed by pompous, arrogant jerks.





After the first half hour of the film, it settles down into a 'journey' film about the Nazis and all the people they meet along the way. Each encounter is meant to show the differences in the ideology between the two nationalities. With each successive encounter, the Nazis are whittled down by desertion, capture or death.





The more the film went on, the more comical the Nazis became. At almost every encounter the Germans took the opportunity to glorify the master plans of Der Fuhrer. After every fiery speech glorifying the Nazi ideal they are met with blank stares from the locals who see them as mindless robots that have no clue about the the world they find themselves in.





The film is an early tour-de-force for some great talent. Laurence Oliver is young and a bit too edgy in his role as the trapper. Leslie Howard (after his stint as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind) is engaging as the odd ball writer living in the woods and studying indians. I didn't realize it until I was reading the credits, but the young girl on the Huterite farm is a very young Glynis Johns (I had a crush on her as a kid). Raymond Massey is out of his usual character as an AWOL Canadian soldier. The cinematography is by Freddie Young, who went on to Oscar fame in some of the classic Hollywood films of the 1950s. Last but not least is a score by Raugh Van Williams.





In the end, this is a morality tale meant to show Canadians what they were fighting for in WWII. Some of the cinematography is beautiful and the acting is entertaining if not somewhat over done in places. The title to the film refers to the border between the United States and Canada. At the end of the film, the remaining Nazis try to escape into the United States (which had not yet entered the war). Needless to say, the United States saves the day but not in the way you might expect. This was an entertaining film that left me smiling but its message might be lost on the younger viewers of today.