The Devil with Hitler

Delightful short, a wartime spoof in which Adolph Hitler (Bobby Watson, a frequent interpreter of the role) is seen so much as being the embodiment of evil that Satan's minions plot to have their master deposed and put the Fuehrer in his place! However, Alan Mowbray as "The Devil Himself" contrives to come up to Earth as the latter's butler (the actor had actually played many such parts throughout his career, most notably in TOPPER [1937]) and trick him into doing one good deed! Nowadays the film will probably be deemed politically incorrect – especially its demeaning depiction of the Japanese, personified here by one Suki Yaki – but it is so disarmingly funny that one can easily overlook this. Among the comic highlights are Hitler's disastrous bath-tub rehearsal of his speech for an upcoming Nazi rally (in which he ends with his current butler sitting on top of him!), the extended night-time sequence in which he shares a bed with Suki Yaki and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (who keeps referring to Hitler as "The Hit"), each having planted a bomb under the other's pillow, and the predictably explosive climax in a munitions factory. The film was produced by slapstick mogul Hal Roach and, of course, director Douglas would soon go on to have a versatile career capped by the sci-fi classic THEM! (1954). Incidentally, THE DEVIL WITH Hitler would be followed by an equally short sequel, NAZTY NUISANCE (1943); subsequently, the two films would be strung together and released as a feature!