Hangmen Also Die! is a largely forgotten masterpiece directed by Fritz Lang (M, The Big Heat, Metropolis, Spies) and co-written with Bertolt Brecht, the great German writer’s only film screenplay. Starring Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Anna Lee, Gene Lockhart, and Alexander Granach, the film is a fictional account of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia and “Butcher of Prague,” and of the German retaliation against the Czech people. Released during the war, the story suggests that the assassination was the work of the Czech Communist Party, when in fact and unknown at the time, the assassination was arranged by British and Czech secret services. The film’s heroic portrayal of Czech communists and Brecht’s own socialist sympathies, which landed him on Hollywood’s black-list, helped relegate this film to the dusty shelves of the studio. Kino Cinema helped restore the film to its rightful place in the canon of Lang’s great pictures.
The following weapons were used in the film Hangmen Also Die!:
