Little Malcolm
And His Struggle Against the Eunuchs

A rationale for Hitler, a formula for understanding him, following on Brecht’s representation of the gangster’s blackmail and protection racket in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

The egoism of the leader, “power for its own sake”, finally a crushing enmity toward Wisdom that can never be sated, such enmity, thus the vacuous nonsense at great length, the invective, the condemnation and the violence.

One turns the other cheek, one leaves him to his own devices.

Variety saw a meritorious film it could not understand and assigned it an “uncertain destination”.

Time Out, “deserved more success”.

The Independent, “plot could do with more work.”

Overlord

The bastard must be dealt with, there is the history of World War II, epitomized in the D-Day landings, which rightly considered you need like a hole in the head.

That is the “discernible point” that Halliwell’s Film Guide finds lacking (Time Out sees “an economy of death”).

Thirty years later it came to America. “Deserves to join the pantheon” (A.O. Scott, New York Times), “the blurring of the line between fact and fiction” (John Hayes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), “comical, lyrical, and artsy interludes” (Gary Giddins, New York Sun).