Hitler: Dead or Alive

Not quite as awful as some would make it out - but definitely in the 'so bad it's funny' category. In fact, it could have been worse - I smiled a lot but I never laughed out loud as I do with Ed Wood films.

There's nothing credible about the story whatsoever - no, don't even try. At one point Hitler gets his mustache shaved off, and people who have known him for years can no longer recognize him! Theshoddy sets and preposterous plot devices have been remarked by other reviewers, why belabor such points. And Ward Bond's performance isn't simply "over the top," it's shot out to the stratosphere. There are some funny lines, and the German accents are Monty-Pythonesque caricatures of human speech. The first half drags a bit, but the second half moves along at a fair clip.

One other piece of plotting non-sequitor: The narrator of the story makes out that he can report a dead hero's last words - unfortunately, nobody present at the death could possibly report these to him. Is he just clairvoyant? And that hero - racketeer, bank-robber, murderer - "A great man," one character calls him, "a great American" says another. Hmmm....

Oh well; one positive piece of propaganda does show up toward the end, when the Nazis line a group of children up against a wall and shoot them. A bit of a brutal throw-away in a film like this, but since this is really something Nazis did, it was important to communicate it to American audiences, so they could get a glimpse at their real enemy - which, since this is the point of the film, made this brief brutal moment worth the whole effort, I guess.