49th Parallel

If you were laboring under the illusion that Canadians are a bunch of hockey-playing, Maple Syrup-guzzling hosers who say "Eh?" a lot, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are here to learn you different!

49th Parallel (1941) is a perfectly-constructed film, part wartime propaganda, part thriller. A few too many speeches belaboring the virtue of democracy does not hamper an otherwise brilliant movie, which works on multiple levels - and, I'd dare say, is Powell and Pressburger's best film. It sends a blunt but effective message: With Nazi spies crawling across Vancouver, the war is not an ocean way, but effects everyonet: no more isolationism for us.

German submarine U-37 is scouting off the coast of Canada after sinking a British freighter. Warships locate and sink the submarine, and the only survivors are six sailors, led by the fanatical Lieutenant Kuehnecke (Eric Portman), who were sent ashore to secure supplies. Our anti-heroes gradually dwindle in number, as they encounter a group of grizzled traders, a commune of pacfist Hutterites, and flee Mounties and vigilantes on their way to (still-neutral) America and freedom.

49th Parallel wonderfully flips audience expectations on their heads. The movie's straight-forward plot of heroic men behind enemy lines... has Nazis as protagonists. And, aside from the fanatical Lieutenant, our Nazis are human beings, their evils of ideology rather than humanity. We see the Nazis commit atrocities (leaving shipwreck survivors to drown, gunning down helpless Eskimos), but we also see them as human beings, particularly Vogel (Niall McGinness), who wants nothing more than to resume his career as a baker. It's the ideology that's bad, not the men, and only the Lieutenant who considers Mein Kampf his Bible is beyond redemption.

49th is not as openly subversive as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), which ran into trouble for suggesting that Englishmen and Germans can be friends, and that the English government makes mistakes in its conduct of war. But still, it's mind-boggling that the British government funded this film in WWII's darkest hour. One seriously wonders how Powell and Pressburger got away with this and Colonel Blimp without serious reprecussions.

Powell and Pressburger present a romanticized view of Canada, not unlike their portrayal of Scotland in I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), full of broad stock characters - a plucky French-Canadian trapper (Laurence Olivier), a cynical deserter (Raymond Massey), cheery Indian and Eskimo sidekicks - and gorgeous landscapes. If the film makes a few too many speeches about the virtue of democracy and the degeneracy of Nazism, it makes up for it with the power of its convictions. The best moment is when the Lieutenant's bombastic pro-Hitler speech to the Hutterites is answered by the group's leader (Anton Walbrook), comporting himself with dignity and quiet anger, explaining how German immigrants think differently than Nazi Germans. Stereotyping can be forgiven when the characters make such strong impressions.

Powell was targetting still-neutral America, and it's hard not to think that his emphasis of Canada's diversity was a nod towards the melting pot to the south. As broad of stereotypes they are, all of the Canadians we meet are decent fellows, whose straightforward friendliness baffle the strictly regimented Nazis. At the end of the film, we see two Americans customs agents sending the Lieutenant back to Canada as contraband: an amusing twist in and of itself, and a sign that we'll come into the war on the right side.

Powell's direction is wonderful, with Freddie Young capturing eyefuls of gorgeous Canadian scenery - mountains, pine forests and snow flats all strikingly captured. Pressburger provides a perfectly-constructed script: its three acts are essentially self-contained, and yet flow together perfectly, with a perfect pace that develops tension and drives the action. David Lean provides some excellent montage work, particularly in the later segments of the film, and Ralph Vaughan Williams adds a superb score.

Eric Portman (A Canterbury Tale) gives a perfect performance as the Lieutenant. He's a one-dimensional character delivered with fiery conviction, the perfect representation of hateful Nazism. Niall McGinnis (Becket) does a great job as the most tragic of Portman's men. Laurence Olivier's bizarre portrayal of a Quebecois is rather cheesy, but the other star cameos are excellent: Raymond Massey (Abe Lincoln in Illinois), Leslie Howard (Pygmalion), Finlay Currie (Great Expectations) and Anton Walbrook (Gaslight).

What more can be said? 49th Parallel is a wonderful film from top-to-bottom. And those Canadians are awesome, eh?