Directed by William Cameron Menzies
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Sony Screen Classics by Request)
A San Francisco art dealer moves to Germany and sends purchases back to his partner. However, he quickly becomes swept up by the Nazi movement, rejecting his former associate, a Jew, and refusing to shelter his daughter when she is pursued as a traitor. After she is shot and killed on his doorstep, his wife leaves him and he starts receiving mysterious letters from America written in code. The Nazi censors intercept them and accuse him of treason. Menzies' masterful use of the black and white medium transform this from routine drama to paranoid horror: the portrait of a man descending into madness. However, German stereotypes abound making it difficult to accept as anything other than anti-Nazi propaganda.
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