A Masterpiece of Intrigue and Deception

Fritz Lang, master of the German expressionist cinema, turns his sinister imagination and shadowy technique to a weblink take of wartime espionage in Hangmen Also Die.

Set in Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation, Hangmen depicts an Eastern Europe populated by spies, traitors and revolutionaries…a deadly funhouse of political intrigue in which every personal encounter brings with it the threat of betrayal. Pursued by the Germans after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Dr. Svoboda (Brain Donlevy) enlists the aid of a young woman (Anna Lee) who is oblivious to the lethal crosscurrents that surround her. As she learns more about the mysterious doctor, she grows aware of the involvement of her father (Walter Brennan) and fiance (Dennis O'Keefe) in the resistance, and soon finds herself entangled in the revolution's secret operations.

Much of the nightmarish quality of Hangmen Also Die is attributable to playwright Bertolt Brecht, who co-scripted the film with Lang, and legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe, who cloaks every corner in shadow and endows the film with an almost tangible sense of claustrophobia. Hangmen has been digitally mastered from a 35mm print newly struck from the original (but slightly damaged) nitrate negative.