This film was on my list of classic films to see. Yes, it reminded me of Hitchcock, but it's a bit clunky in retrospect. I go easy on old films like this one because they met the production values of their time. That said, what's wonderful about this is the cinematography. The shadows are the most inky velvet smothering shades of secrecy and portending doom.
It's an early film of directorCarol Reed, best known for Odd Man Out, and The Third Man. Knowing this, I could feel the kind of pacing he favored - a slow workup to something dreadful.
And of course, you'd want to see Rex Harrison play a Nazi. His attenuated graceful form verifies that old chest nut about the attractiveness of a man in uniform, even though it's a Nazi one. It's chilling when Paul Henreid's character is exposed as a Nazi - I should have seen that coming.
I liked the plot twist here - the escape occurs at the beginning and then the good English scientist and his daughter are recaptured and must escape again. There's amusement layered into the film with two English diplomats whose self-absorbtion is dismantled by their contacts with Nazi offices and come to Harrison's assistance to enable an escape.
The final scene, made using painted backdrops, involving escape on cable cars traversing a high mountain chasm between Switzerland and Germany, is stunning. The mountains are hyper mountains, working to represent the possibility of a bright future and the intractable force of evil government.
The portrayal of the Nazis does little to reveal the scope of their monstrosity - they appear quite stereotypical, though one scene where a sadistic doctor perfunctorily and hypocritically examines prisoners to determine if they are fit for punishment is chilling
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