Man Hunt (1941 film)

Man Hunt
Directed byFritz Lang
Written byDudley Nichols
Lamar Trotti
Based onRogue Male
1939 novel
by Geoffrey Household
Produced byKenneth Macgowan
Darryl F. Zanuck
StarringWalter Pidgeon
Joan Bennett
George Sanders
CinematographyArthur C. Miller
Edited byAllen McNeil
Music byAlfred Newman
Production
company
Distributed byTwentieth Century-Fox
Release date
  • June 13, 1941 (1941-06-13)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguagesEnglish
German

Man Hunt is a 1941 American political thriller film, directed by Fritz Lang and starring Walter Pidgeon and Joan Bennett.[1][2] It is based on the 1939 novel Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household and is set in Europe just prior to the Second World War. Lang had fled Germany into exile in 1933 and this was the first of his four anti-Nazi films, which include Ministry of Fear, Hangmen Also Die!, and Cloak and Dagger. It was Roddy McDowall's first Hollywood film after escaping London following the Blitz.[3] Man Hunt was one of many films released in 1941 that were considered so pro-British that they influenced neutral members of the U.S. public to sympathize with the British side in World War II.[4]

The film portrays Britain's pre-war policy of appeasement with Germany in its willingness to extradite one of its own citizens without any defense, and its depiction of Nazi agents freely walking about London, impersonating police, and terrorizing civilians.

The story was filmed again under its original title, Rogue Male (1976), by the BBC in a version starring Peter O'Toole.

  1. ^ Variety film review; June 11, 1941, page 14.
  2. ^ Harrison's Reports film review; June 21, 1941, page 98.
  3. ^ The Observer, The New Review section, Philip French's Classic DVD p.26, 6 February 2011
  4. ^ One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II By M. Todd Bennett pg. 81