The Condemned of Altona (1962)

I saw this movie on the big screen several years ago in San Diego and I've never forgotten it. This movie falls loosely within the Holocaust/antisemitic genre and I'm surprised that many of my fellow Jews have never even heard of it. The idea of a family keeping their ex-Nazi son in the attic (it's not the basement)to protect him from the public is intriguing to say the least. There are a few scenes that I can never forget: Max Schell still wearing his Nazi uniform; his sister wiping up his excrement off the floor, like the family pet; Schell unwrapping and eating chocolate that's wrapped in Nazi tinfoil. To be kept away all these years from communicating with the outside world that's changed so much from the Nazi era. The last scene with Schell and Frederick March standing above the industrial complex that's been created. All these scenes stand out in my mind. The stark black and white film ties in exactly with that dark period in German/Jewish history. I'll never forget this movie. I wish so much that it is someday available in a DVD or (please don't) VHS version--even a copy from a TV movie showing on, say, the Fox movie channel. Anybody have a copy for sale? Contact me.

I only saw this film once, nearly forty years ago, on television. I later read the original Sartre play in a drama class, and found that the movie was reasonably faithful to the original. It is apparently unavailable on home video, unfortunately.I remember being fascinated by the compelling performance of Maximilian Schell as the former Nazi officer who is believed dead, but actually hiding out in his family's attic. His sister, for some reason ,lets him think the war is still going on, twenty years later. She reads him made-up news bulletins about the Allies' destruction of Germany, feeding his madness.The most memorable scene was when the recluse Schell left the house, and went out into the city for the first time in twenty years or more. People stare and laugh at him, as he walks around the modern city in his old Nazi uniform. He is bewildered by all the modern buildings and signs of prosperity in a Germany he had believed utterly destroyed forever.In a particularly clever touch, he somehow ends up in a theater, where a Nazi era satire is being performed. The modern German audience laughs at the caricatured Hitler and his followers. As a kid, I realized it was some kind of Hitler spoof, but the whole thing was in German, and I had to guess at its significance. I now believe that it was most likely a play within a play, namely a scene from the climax of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. It's been a long time since I saw this film, but it seems to me that Schell, in his madness and confusion, mistakenly believes it's some kind of real Nazi rally, and starts saluting "Hitler" , while the audience thinks he's part of the show. It's unfortunate that this movie isn't available for a new audience to appreciate. With any luck, it will come to home video eventually.

This is a darkly disturbing film of a Nazi war criminal, still wearing his German army uniform, who is hidden in his father's house, and led to believe that World War II is still going on. The ending of the movie is a bizarre mix of Fellini and Capote. Schell escapes his "prison" and walks around the streets only to be "shocked" that there is no destruction or war raging. He ends up in a local theater and salutes an actor playing Hitler. I won't give the ending away, but it's a shocking surprise ala Play Dirty or To Live and Die in LA. The acting is great, the black and white film make the movie realistic and it captures a time in history which hopefully is gone for ever. An excellent film.

It was very long ago, but this film touched me deeply. A became obsessed with Shostakovich's 11th Symphony, and remember vividly some scenes. When Maximillian Schell is finally "released" and goes out into the city (Hamburg?) to see what Germany has become, he is repulsed. When Frederich March is told he will die, he is solemn. The plot, that they have hidden their son because he is a wanted war criminal. That they collaborated willingly with the Nazis, as an industrial power. Perhaps I have forgotten important details. But the movie resonates with me.