Watch on the Rhine

America was late entering World War II, stirred on to battle by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Once we had entered the war, though, many film studios who had been reluctant to lend their voices to the anti-fascism movement began to speak up, no longer shying away from alienating their European audiences. Suddenly there were films being made from most of the major studios that were outwardly vocal against the Nazis and celebrating our fighting men as they left the comforts of their homes to fight for freedom and an end to Hitler’s reign. Warner Bros. was early on that bandwagon, unafraid of stirring the pot well before most of the other studios were willing to. 

In 1941, American playwright Lillian Hellman penned the book for Watch on the Rhine, a mixture of drawing-room comedy and Nazi corruption. This mixture earned this unique drama the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and got the attention of Warner Bros. Studios. Not long afterwards, Dashiell Hammett, an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels including The Maltese Falcon, was brought in to write a script to adapt Watch on the Rhine for the cinemas. What he wrote would eventually be praised by critics and get nominated for four Oscars, including Outstanding Production.

The story takes place in 1940. German engineer Kurt Muller (Paul Lukas) crosses the Mexican/American border en route to Washington D.C. alongside his wife, Sara (Bette Davis), and their three children, Joshua, Babette, and Bodo. There they intend to visit Sara’s brother David (Donald Woods) and their mother Fanny (Lucile Watson). Also there is the Countess Marthe de Brancovis (Geraldine Fitzgerald) and her husband, the opportunistic Romanian count, Teck (George Coulouris), who has been conspiring with the German embassy.  

Kurt and his family have been living abroad in Europe for the last 17 years and, with the recent uprising of Nazism in Germany, have been engaged in various anti-fascist activities which have put his life in danger. They are now in America seeking peaceful sanctuary but have aroused the suspicion of Teck who insists he recognizes Kurt from his time in France. When Teck discovers money and a gun amongst Kurt’s things, he suspects this is to aid in the resistance movement and, with the recent capture of some of Kurt’s fellow patriots in Europe, uses this information in an attempt to blackmail the man. Kurt, ascertaining that paying off Teck will not prevent the man from turning him in anyway, decides he must take more drastic measures to ensure he is not captured as he plans to return to Europe and break his friends out from a Nazi prison. 

Hammett’s initial script was fairly faithful to the original play, which ultimately ran afoul of the Hays office, whose strict interpretation of moral values clashed with the ending of the script. They argued that killing someone in cold blood, no matter how justified the act might be, could not go unpunished and fought with the studios and the writer over adding an additional ending to show that a Kurt had been punished for it. It didn’t matter that the man killed was a Nazi attempting to commit blackmail and deception; in the eyes of the production office, punishment had to be handed down for the killing. This led to a great deal of disagreement on the set of the picture, with leading actor Paul Lukas refusing to show up to film the added scenes. Ultimately, some dialogue was added between Sara and Joshua that strongly suggests that Kurt was captured or killed, satisfying the Hays office.  This addition weakens the film and shifts the tone negatively, a clear example of why a strict interpretation of the production code doesn’t always make sense. 

Warner Bros., perhaps thinking about their recent success with Casablanca, wanted Paul Henreid to play the role of Kurt. Paul, fearing being typecast as noble resistance fighters, used a clause in his contract that stipulated that he always got the girl as an excuse to get out of the movie. He felt the character was underwritten and that the play was “contrived…in no way up to Elmer Rice’s Flight to the West.” It was for the best as he was correct; the character is underwritten and just as stoic and bland as Victor Laszlo. Henreid, who always seemed to come across as a stiff, emotionless character, would have weakened an already underwritten character even more, bringing unwanted comparisons to Casablanca. 

Bette Davis is a tremendous presence, even in her lesser films. Watching her, you can’t tell that there was a great deal of drama going on behind the scenes. She was accustomed to taking vacations between her pictures, which, because of the limited time frame for filming, she was unable to do here. This left her irritable and argumentative, fighting with the director, Herman Shumlin, and especially Lucile Watson, her on-screen mother. She and Lucile were polar opposites in their political views, which fueled their confrontations often when the cameras weren’t rolling. None of this can be seen in the finished film, of course, and Bette, in a surprising bit of humility, didn’t want to be top-billed, pointing out that she is a supporting character. The studio insisted, though, knowing her name attracted audiences to the theaters. 

Watch on the Rhine is one of those movies that attacks fascism and the rising Nazi movement in Europe without really showing us much of that. Instead, it relies on dialogue to mostly sell the menace, dialogue, and a preexisting knowledge of what World War II was all about. It doesn’t spoonfeed the drama nor does it ignore the danger that is growing in Europe at the time. Because of that, it doesn’t quite build up enough tension to get it over the hump of being a dialogue-heavy play translated to the screen. It is never boring, but it never hits the highs of a true classic such as Casablanca, where the stakes can be felt and nearly everything is firing on all cylinders. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Outstanding Motion Picture: Hal B. Wallis

Best Actor: Paul Lukas (won)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Lucile Watson

Best Writing (Screenplay): Dashiell Hammett 

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Release Date: August 27, 1943

Running Time: 114 minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Bette Davis, Paul Lukas, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Lucile Watson, Beulah Bondi, and George Coulouris

Directed by: Herman Shumlin