Douglas Sirk (All That Heaven Allows) makes his American directorial debut in this powerful wartime thriller starring John Carradine, Alan Curtis and Patricia Morison. Parachuting near the occupied village of Lidice, Czech soldier Karel Vavra (Curtis) recruits saboteurs in the fight against the Nazis. Determined to end the resistance, Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich (Carradine) murders priests, closes schools and forces the female students to "entertain" German soldiers. Incensed by the atrocities, Vavra and the partisans plot to assassinate Heydrich, an act of reprisal that will ensure Lidice's fate through the hands of Reichsfuhrer Himmler. Independently produced by German expatriates and powered by Sirk's distinctive visual style, Hitler's Madman is one of the rare outside films acquired by M-G-M, a superior B-movie that captures the harrowing events that took place in Lidice on June 10, 1942.
