| 49th Parallel - Criterion Collection | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 20 reviews)
Sales Rank: 24208
Category: DVD
Actors: Richard George, Eric Portman, Raymond Lovell, Niall Macginnis, Peter Moore (xii)
Director: Michael Powell
Publisher: Criterion
Studio: Criterion
Brand: Image Entertainment
Label: Criterion
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), German (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD
Running Time: 123 minutes
Number Of Items: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: CC1683DDVD
UPC: 715515022422
EAN: 0715515022422
ASIN: B000KRNGN6
Release Date: February 20, 2007
Theatrical Release Date: April 15, 1942
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
At once a compelling piece of anti-isolationist propaganda and a quick-witted wartime thriller, 49th Parallel is a classic early work from the inimitable British filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. When a Nazi U-boat crew, headed by the ruthless Eric Portman, is stranded in Canada during the thick of World War II, the men evade capture by hiding out in a series of rural communities, before trying to cross the border into the United States. Both soul-stirring and delightfully entertaining, 49th Parallel features a colorful cavalcade of characters played by larger-than-life actors Laurence Olivier, Raymond Massey, Anton Walbrook, and Leslie Howard.
Amazon.com
During World War II, Michael Powell and his writer-producer partner Emeric Pressberger were enlisted to make films in support of the British war effort. While many of their contemporaries turned out routine thrillers, Powell and Pressberger created inventive dramas with a patriotic purpose. The 1941 adventure The 49th Parallel, about a small German U-boat crew stranded in Canada off Hudson's Bay, is a prime example of wartime propaganda turned into rousing entertainment with smart writing, engaging characters, and creative cinema. As the Germans traverse the length of Canada, attempting to outrun authorities while seeking a passage to the still-neutral United States, they encounter a wide array of citizens from all walks of life, including French Canadian trapper Laurence Olivier (with a perhaps overenthusiastic accent), Hutterites Anton Walbrook and Glynis Johns, intellectual aesthete Leslie Howard, and two-fisted AWOL soldier Raymond Massey. As the Nietzschian sermons of Nazi leader Hirth (Eric Portman) fall on deaf ears, his party dwindles in number as the people of Canada rise up to stop his escape, not so much with violence as with pure defiance. The rhetoric isn't subtle--the film was designed to both strengthen ties to Canada and encourage America's entrance into the war--but the vivid location shooting provides a marvelous travelogue of Canada's landscapes and natural beauty and a loving portrait of the rich culture north of the 49th parallel. The picture earned Emeric Pressberger an Academy Award for his original story. This movie is also known as The Invaders. --Sean Axmaker
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 THE BATTLE OF WORLDVIEWS!! August 16, 2008
First of all, this Criterion-restored version is a great quality picture, clean and crisp. Second, it is a movie with an ulterior motive, that of getting the then-neutral USA into the war. While I don't think it detracts from the entertainment merits, some people do. The story begins with a German U-Boat somewhere in the northern part of Canada. It destroys a Canadian cargo ship and then refuses to help save the survivors. The commander decides to head for Hudson Bay to lay low for awhile until they can escape. They send a small crew ashore to steal supplies they will need. While the U-Boat is surfaced, it is spotted by the Canadian Air Force and destroyed. The stranded crew on shore must try to navigate their way to the 49TH PARALLEL (the line dividing the US and Canada) and the neutral U.S. where they can find freedom. The propaganda enters in when they encounter Canadian citizens in their journey and enter into debates about the merits of democracy versus the white supremacy worldview of 'The Fuhrer'. There are some surprising turns and twists and a satisfying ending. A very interesting aspect of WWII and how it affected Canadians. There were some 500,000 Germans living in Canada at the time and apparently some 850 were interned for being Nazi spies as well as subversives and saboteurs. There are several interesting extras along with the Criterion edition. Enjoy. WWW.LUSREVIEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Powell & Pressburgerlicious November 9, 2007
With the advent of Criterion releasing so many Powell/Pressburger colaborations to video, I've become a real fan of their stuff and 49th Parallel is no exception.
The story involves the activities of a group of fugitive German soldiers crossing Canada during World War II who try to evade capture while spreading the word of 'der Fuehrer'. While the premise doesn't sound all that original considering the propagandistic output of the film industry at the time, the script and performances make this film one of the best. The photography in certain scenes borders on the expressionistic with great visuals of Canada in all its natural glory. The acting is right on the mark and contains segments featuring great canadian and british actors of the '40's.....Anton Walbrook, Olivier, Raymond Massey, Glynnis Johns, Leslie Howard.
Filmed in black and white it may lack some of the intensity of Black Narcissus, but the print is good and the story even better.
 Wonderful as anti-Nazi propaganda but failed as film September 6, 2007
Powell and Pressburger made great films, they were artists of the art of cinema. I am the first to regret to write this but the well-intentioned aim of the film: to rouse anti-Nazi feelings in America in order to help the British against the German nazis poses too much stress on the film itself.
The cast is great, great actors; great scenery. As propaganda it is hardly possible to do a better job in exposing what Nazism means and its implications in our daily lives (religious and civil liberties), and it brings to bear in mind the lucky we free peoples are in our imperfect democracies, so we can appreciate our freedoms more. But again, this aim is too stressed, it becomes too obvious in the dialogues and all through the film.
Nazis on the Run Across Canada in an Episodic, Pip-Pip Propaganda Epic July 1, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The Criterion Collection saw fit to release this 1941 British propaganda film in an elaborate two-disc set, but the circumstances behind the production are actually more interesting than the resulting film showcased in a fine print on the 2007 disc. In their third collaboration, director Michael Powell and screenwriter Eric Pressburger were requested by the British Government's Ministry of Information to make a movie that would encourage the U.S. to join the Allied forces to defeat the Nazis, all this months prior to Pearl Harbor. As it stands, the film serves as a piercing if somewhat dogmatic indictment of the absolutist Nazi rhetoric and the simple-minded brutality borne out of it. The title refers to the border between the U.S. and Canada, which is immediately identified by the narrator as "the only undefended frontier in the world".
Enter a German U-boat, which gets sunk in Canadian waters, while six Nazi soldiers look for food and supplies on land. Suddenly stranded in a country not only alien to them but also hostile to their point of view, the rest of the plot is about how these men attempt to find a way to get out of Canada and back to Germany. They make their way westward meeting various people who react to their presence in divergent ways. The film's most intriguing and challenging aspect is how the soldiers are presented in various shades of fanaticism from the uncompromising zealot, Lieutenant Hirth, to the passive resistance of Vogel, who wants to abandon the cause to become a baker. The episodic structure accommodates several famous stars in condensed roles, the most familiar being Laurence Olivier as a French-Canadian fur-trapper and Leslie Howard as a reclusive aesthete. Olivier's cameo is particularly shameless with an overripe accent that portends the hamminess of his twilight career roles, while Howard's has a touch of ironic poignancy given his death from a German fighter attack soon after production was completed.
The most interesting passage occurs when the soldiers happen upon a Hutterite farming community in Manitoba, an Amish-like oasis of pacifist civility that must have served as the inspiration for Peter Weir's "Witness". Eric Portman plays the soulless Hirth with a barely concealed rage and a wavering Teutonic accent, while Niall MacGinniss subtly shows the inner conflict of a man having doubts about the necessity of a master race. Long before Mary Poppins and While You Were Sleeping, Glynis Johns, all of 17, affectingly plays a naive Hutterite girl intrigued by the soldiers. There is evidence of Powell's and Pressburger's compelling cinematic style in various shots (like the plane crash sequence), and revered British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams composed the atmospheric score that beautifully underlines much of the action.
For all its good intentions, however, the film is compromised by a narrative that rarely inspires and other than the Nazi portrayals, characters that often seem cardboard-thin. Film historian Bruce Eder provides academic commentary on an alternate track on the first disc, while the second disc consists of three major components. The first is a 46-minute short, "The Volunteer", starring Ralph Richardson as himself as he shows a theater dresser preparing to entering military service. The second is an hour-long audio tape of Powell narrating parts of his autobiography, and the final piece is an entertaining hour-long 1981 documentary about Powell and Pressburger, although unfortunately it bypasses production of this film entirely.
49th Parallel June 25, 2007
Also known as "The Invaders," and co-scripted by Powell's longtime partner Emeric Pressburger, this clever, rousing anti-fascist war thriller was one of Britain's boldest and most memorable propaganda pictures. Portman is mesmerizing as the wicked, hate-spouting Lt. Hirth, Walbrook, Howard, and Olivier (despite the heavy Quebecois accent) are uniformly excellent, and the distinguished Raymond Massey is also on-hand playing cynical AWOL soldier Andy Brock. Powell even brings a documentary-like intensity to the sequences filmed in Indian and Hutterite communities. Absorbing on many levels, "Parallel" is a soul-stirring drama that recaptures a tumultuous time.
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