None Shall Escape – As Long As We Don’t Let Them By Kim Luperi

“Think how important those formulae are: How to make a villain? We need to pay very great attention to those ‘how to’s,’” actress Marsha Hunt warned before a screening of the WWII drama NONE SHALL ESCAPE (1944) at the 2018 TCM Classic Film Festival. Sage advice then and some 75 years later.

I first heard of NONE SHALL ESCAPE about five years ago. The film is rarely screened and was not on DVD, yet as the first picture to depict the post-WWII world – before the Allied victory – it was groundbreaking on many levels. It detailed “Nazi barbarism with far more courage and intelligence” than other WWII films (Baltimore Morning Sun), was “the most prophetic screen play of our time” (Waterbury Democrat) and was said to contain “the most passionate, the most militant indictment of anti-Semitism in the history of Hollywood” (The Daily Worker). Despite such strong accolades, NONE SHALL ESCAPE remains all but forgotten today. What a shame that is, because the episodes of unjust hatred and pleas for peace this film depicts feel very relevant today.

NONE SHALL ESCAPE unfolds in flashback, as Nazi officer Wilhelm Grimm (Alexander Knox) faces trial for his war crimes following the end of WWII. Acquaintances including his former fiancée Marja (Hunt), his brother Karl (Erik Rolf) and Father Warecki (Henry Travers) testify against him, painting vivid pictures as to how this former schoolteacher and disabled WWI veteran transformed from an outcast in a Polish village to a high-ranking Nazi official.

NONE SHALL ESCAPE approaches its war theme from a different vantage point in analyzing the hows and whys of evil and intolerance in the making. Part of the reason I admire this uncannily prescient film, aside from its resilient production and performances, is its brazenness. Shot while the war raged on without a clear end in sight and released over a year and a half before hostilities officially ceased, the movie not only predicted the Allied forces’ triumph, but it also forecast the prosecution of Nazi party members with the Nuremberg trials almost two years away.

If those audacious facts aren’t astounding enough, here’s one more: While over 140 movies came out during WWII, NONE SHALL ESCAPE was the first picture to depict the massacre of the Jewish population and identify victims as Jews. Furthermore, the film did not shy away from showcasing the atrocity of war, and its violence, mostly aimed at innocent civilians, comes across as incredibly blunt and agonizing for its time.

Universally praised, NONE SHALL ESCAPE won high marks from critics who commended its blatant, timely condemnation of the Nazis’ brutality. Though President Roosevelt’s October 1942 proclamation that the UN would investigate war criminals inspired producer Sam Bischoff, director André De Toth’s experiences as a newsreel cameraman documenting the fall of Poland in 1939 informed many of the picture’s most vicious events. “I must never forget what I saw and learned,” De Toth said in a January 1944 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. And clearly, he hadn’t. Case in point: The German officer assigned to his unit who was “inordinately proud of the destruction which we saw all about us and kept talking about the music of battle” sounds suspiciously like NONE SHALL ESCAPE’s Wilhelm Grimm. 

Both sides of what De Toth witnessed made it into the picture: the truth – brutality, destruction, indiscriminate murder and assumed prostitution, none of which he was permitted to photograph – and the lies he was ordered to capture, like German troops handing food out to Poles smiling “practically at bayonet point.” “Had I turned my camera in another direction to photograph the truth, I would have been sent back to Budapest without another word,” De Toth stated. Thankfully, Hollywood gave him a second chance to put more of the truth to film.

Though firmly of its time, certain episodes in NONE SHALL ESCAPE resonate in today’s political and social climate. Between Father Warecki and Rabbi David Levin’s (Richard Hale) impassioned speeches imploring peace and acceptance and Marja calling Wilhelm and his Nazi-bred nephew blind followers, well, it’s still pretty timely stuff. Some critics found the film’s ending negative, with Wilhelm reasserting the Nazis’ prowess (“We will rise again and again!”) and the judge handing judgement off to the UN (and with a square look into the camera, the audience as well). This move, which could have been mandated by the US government as some viewers would regard the movie as foreshadowing future events, can also been seen as placing an obligation on the viewer to do what’s right and hold the guilty parties accountable. NONE SHALL ESCAPE informs us that denouncing intolerance and protecting marginalized populations is a responsibility placed upon every citizen in every country. And that’s a message we need to hear – and heed – more than ever today.