Word: gestapoed
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...German, he claims-Reich representative of the Italian silk firm of Seta Inc. One day the Gestapo rushed a non-Aryan friend of his into a concentration camp, and S. K. made history by getting him out. Later he got others out, with the help of a sympathetic Gestapo official and some forged steamship tickets. Then the Gestapo asked S. K. himself to drop in one afternoon...
After their mass resignation (TIME, March 9), Norway's Lutheran bishops were ordered to report twice daily to the Gestapo. So they assembled in Oslo, reported in a body, in their official garb. Crowds gathered to cheer them. The baffled Gestapo has now ordered them to report to a more obscure station...
...formula is not successful in the present picture, for there is something too agonizingly real about the military genius of the Germans in the past three years to make them effective butts for farcical humor. Actually, in all recent war films, Hollywood has shown a propensity to have the Gestapo foiled by the most guileless and pure of people in "Paris Calling," "Man Hunt." "The Great Dictator," and so on. None of these plots had an adult approach to the complicated processes which will lead us to victory. Little wonder, then, that the average American, fed on such treacle, believes...
Bits of the picture are hilarious, deft touches that could come only from Lubitsch's direction. But they often slip over into the intensely dramatic and prevent the consistency of tone present in such Lubitsch successes as "Ninotchka." For instance, take this case: a Gestapo agent, speaking of Jack Benny's acting, says, "What he did to Shakespeare, we are now doing to Poland." The basic plot is a natural for Benny and Miss Lombard, who are cast as Josef and Maria Tura, the leading actor and actress of Poland. He is an actor who revels in Hamlet...
Perhaps Jack Benny is no great shakes at Hamlet, but his Josef Tura is a beautiful piece of comic playing, especially when he impersonates the envoy and various Gestapo chiefs. Miss Lombard plays with consummate skill, warmth and humor. One forgets this is her last role, so compelling and captivating is her performance. The supporting cast is tops, particularly Felix Bressart, as a frustrated spear carrier, who dreams of playing Shylock; and Tom Dugan who turns in a wonderfully ludicrous impersonation of Hitler...