Leofwine_draca 49TH PARALLEL is a thematic war movie by the Powell & Pressburger team. It follows the misadventures of a bunch of Germans who find themselves stranded in Canada and must go undercover in order to reach the American border; as a neutral country, America will provide them a place of safety. Along the way, the Germans meet up with various characters and conflicting attitudes toward the war are subsequently explored throughout. 49TH PARALLEL is a well acted movie and as a propaganda piece it's less gung-ho than usual, taking time to explore the depth of the situation and raising some interesting questions at the same time.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Truly bizarre British war propaganda movie that has a bunch of German sailors stuck in Canada when their U-Boat, U-37, was sunk by the Canadian Air Force in Hudson's Bay. These bumbling "Nazi Supermen" as they like to be called then embark on a mission to cross the length and breath of Canada to Vancover which takes almost the entire length of the movie only to end up in Niagria Falls some 2,200 miles east of Vancover when they were headed for! All that travailing in what seems like the time it takes to go from San Francisco to Oakland which is something like two or three miles!Lead by their both fearless and at the same time brainless leader Let. Hirth, Eric Portman, the Nazi sailors seem to have luck on their side with everything going in their favor even though they never bother to hide their identities by always shooting off their mouths and giving Nazi salutes in how great their country Nazi Germany and their leader Adolph Hitler is. This in a country that's in a life and death struggle with Germany and that even saying good things about the Nazi regime can put them,if they were Canadian citizens, behind bars for at least five years or until the end of the war! We get to see the Nazis get involved with a number of Canadians as well as native Eskimos whom they end up killing yet nobody in the Canadian military or internal security service, like the mounties, seems to even notice it! This after their Nazis sub was sunk and an all out alert was called to track down and arrest or even shoot its surviving members! There's also a scene with the Nazis ending up in this German religious Hutterite Christan community where one of them Vogel, Nall MacGinnis, has a change of heart about the Fatherland and tries to join it. Finding a girlfriend Anna, Glynis Jones, and a job as the community baker didn't set well with Vogel's commanding officer Let. Hirth, who had the poor and love sick slub shot at sunrise for his defying his orders.***SPOILERS*** The last 15 or so minutes of the film really starts to get utterly ridicules with the two surviving Nazis Let. Hirth & Lorhmann, John Chawdos, ending up in the Great Pacific North-West in this Indian colony with English Indian expert Philip Armstrong Scott played by a wimpy and effeminate sounding Leslie Howard. Scott who befriended the two Nazis, like every other Canadian in the film, soon realized what their up to after they tied him, which he seemed to enjoy, up and destroyed his precious paintings books and notes, which greatly upset him, about the Indian tribes in the area. In what seems like him being Immune to bullets Scott captures Lohrmann single handedly,telling the group of Canadian hunters and mounties to stay out of it, only to have Let. Hirth escape some 2,200 miles back east,in what seems like a few minutes, to Niagria Falls in his attempt to cross into the neutral, at the time, USA and get political asylum there. Just when you thought that you've seen everything poor Let. Hirth runs into an AWOL Canadian Army soldier Andy Block, Raymond Massey, on the train he's hiding in and as usual the brainless Nazi shoot his big mouth off about his plans to escape to the USA and thus become a big hero in the Fatherland, Nazi Germany, in being able to outwit the entire Canadian population. That gives Andy, who left the Canadian Army because he wasn't sent to Euurpe to fight the Nazis, a reason to put an end to Let. Hirth's flight to freedom by cold cocking the by now daffy ridicules and reality challenged Nazi who was,in the train inspectors finding that he wasn't on the train's manifest, on his way back to Canada anyway!

cmeneken-1 If you get more than twenty minutes into this film, you are one committed movie goer--but you should be committed elsewhere. This film about a Nazi sub crew stranded in Hudson's Bay (as if) was so unrealistic and poorly filmed that I was waiting for Nanook of the North to save the day. Unfortunately along came a French Canadian with a lumberman's shirt on played atrociously by L. Olivier and with one fell swoop I began thinking of the Pythons' "I'M a Lumberman...." Well, as it turns out, the Nazis actually did land in Canada once during the war to place a weather station in Labrador, that stopped working after a few days. As suggested, this is more than can be said for this film. Cheers to anyone who lasts longer.

lotus07 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.