49th Parallel. (1941) ~Speech~-

Speech Scene. Anton Walbrook, Eric Portman, Glynis Johns
Country: United Kingdom
Directed by
Michael Powell
Writing credits
Emeric Pressburger (story and screenplay)
Rodney Ackland (scenario) and
Emeric Pressburger (scenario)
Cast (in credits order) verified as complete
Richard George... Kommandant Bernsdorff
Eric Portman... Lieutenant Hirth
Raymond Lovell... Lieutenant Kuhnecke
Niall MacGinnis... Vogel
Peter Moore... Kranz
John Chandos... Lohrmann
Basil Appleby... Jahner
Laurence Olivier... Johnnie - the Trapper
Finlay Currie... The Factor
Ley On... Nick - the Eskimo
Anton Walbrook... Peter
Glynis Johns... Anna
Charles Victor... Andreas
Frederick Piper... David
Leslie Howard... Philip Armstrong Scott
Tawera Moana... George - the Indian
Eric Clavering... Art
Charles Rolfe... Bob
Raymond Massey... Andy Brock
Theodore Salt... A United States Customs Officer
O.W. Fonger... A United States Customs Officer
Produced by
Michael Powell.... producer
George H. Brown.... associate producer (uncredited)
Roland Gillett.... associate producer (uncredited)
John Sutro.... producer (uncredited)
Production Companies * Ortus Films
Distributors * General Film Distributors (GFD) (1941) (UK) (theatrical) (as General Film Distributors Ltd.) * Columbia Pictures (1942) (USA) (theatrical) * Columbia Pictures (1948) (USA) (theatrical) (re-release) * Criterion Collection, The (1990) (USA) (video) (laserdisc) * Criterion Collection, The (2006) (USA) (DVD) * Criterion Collection, The (2007) (USA) (DVD) * Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (????) (USA) (TV)
Other Companies * London Symphony Orchestra, The (LSO) music played by (as The London Symphony Orchestra)

[@loris711]

A powerful scene from a magnificent film. Thank you so much! Anton Walbrook's acting is so superb, he really puts the usually excellent Laurence Olivier and Leslie Howard to shame.

[@loge10]

I agree - and love Anton Walbrook in almost anything he's in - but do you think he is so powerful in this scene also because he is speaking from personal experience? Like his role in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, this is not just a character to him.

[@denverdubois5835]

I love Anton Walbrook so much. One of the greatest actors who ever lived, and a remarkable human being.

[@ZLVS4393]

Absolutely !!

[@loris711]

A powerful scene from a magnificent film. Thank you so much!

[@tomrostock1183]

This is particularly poignant if you know that Anton Walbrook was himself a refugee from Vienna, considered an enemy of the people because he was both Jewish and gay.

[@Farawaysoclose]

MR ERIC PORTMAN he is a great-actor-wish we have a time machine- r-i-p-thanks

[@edawg1960]

Wow! Mr. Mr. Walbrook delivered this script beautifully!

[@ishmyl99]

Many thanks for the upload, VINTAGEZELLE. A great clip of Walbrook's range and dignity on screen. Thank heaven for Powell and Pressburger. Their collaborations with him are unforgettable.

[@questjonmark]

An Academy Award winning speech for screenwriter Pressburger. The Archers: "Mickey" and Emeric gave Anton another powerful soliloquy, where, as a retired German WWI officer, he's applying for permission to return to and live in the UK, in their glorious technocolor "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp." Found on youtube as "The Truth Monologue," it's well worth a look & listen.

[@youexx]

Anton's shining moment of extraordinary nobility!!

[@ishmyl99]

@loris711 Agreed! A refined & vastly under-appreciated, magnetic screen actor. But we celebrate him here and wherever his work is shown. The fact that Walbrook was an Austrian of Jewish heritage, who fled (actual/imminent personal?) Nazi persecution, greatly underscores the dramatic weight & moral power of this scene. No mere acting technique here, but authenticity from the depths. Admirable is how Walbrook's brilliance transcends the rhetorical tone of a speech, and humanizes it so beautifully.

[@samosullivan1744]

Ridiculous that Walbrook wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar at least once in his career!!

[@DerrickMims]

The commentary track says that since America was neutral, a film encouraging them to go to war against Germany could not very well be made. But by making one focused on Canada, it could touch on all of the same themes that the Americans would understand. The commentary also reminds us that it's hard for us to grasp just how frightening the Nazi menace really was in 1941. We have the benefit of hindsight - we know they eventually lost. But in 1941, that victory was by no means assured. So there are aspects of this film that will speak much better to its original audience than it does to us today.

[@SaskiaVintage]

+Derrick Mims Thanks so much for leaving your comment and letting us know your thoughts about it!

[@ishmyl99]

+Derrick Mims "...hard for us to grasp just how frightening the Nazi menace really was in 1941." The film "The Shop on Main Street" (1965, Czechoslovakia) is one of the few feature films that subtly, and therefore convincingly, captures the inexorable creep and rising tide of fascist power, and ordinary people's complicity with it. A now near-forgotten but truly compelling masterpiece. One which slowly and effectively brings the viewer into another time and place. It makes us feel the "banality of evil" only too close to home -- among any people, in any country, anywhere. And, most truthfully, in ourselves. A movie that will leave you still and shaken, with its spectrum of human truths made all too timely felt in the present. Yet which will yield a personal clarity you will never forget. One which can plant (or strengthen) a seed of moral conviction -- and, hopefully, courageous, right action. Before it is too late. It's a powerhouse of a film. Humble and unassuming. But which, just like a thunderstorm (and like tyranny itself), gradually builds in momentum. Creeping up on the viewer. Until it shatters one's false securities and self-deceptions, all the rationalized hesitations that render us a part of the very menace and malignancy our conscience demands we expose and thwart. "The Shop on Main Street" draws us in, to see a truly terrifying reality unfold. A tragic horror of human ignorance, moral cowardice and corruption, which the human race seems hellbent to repeat. Whereas "The 49th Parallel" presents us with a stark and equally striking contrast. Walbrook's character, and the community of which he is a part, is a human ideal. In him, moral courage, humanity, integrity, leadership, conscience, and authentic principled action take their stand. A rare light against the looming shadows of human darkness. Against the brute forces which destroy a part of every one of us. A part of every soul. But only if we ourselves let it. One individual human being at a time.

[@DerrickMims]

Thank you! I will look for it.

[@ishmyl99]

+Derrick Mims You are most welcome. Your original comment is appreciated, which is why I shared about "The Shop on Main Street." If you have access to Netflix, "TSOMS" is available on disc through them. Peace.

[@JessCorey]

"But in 1941, that victory was by no means assured. So there are aspects of this film that will speak much better to its original audience than it does to us today." --- Spoken by someone who does not observe things, either 8 years ago when you spoke, or today.... This scene has a deep historical resonance, because all of us....are the children of relatives who came to North America or who were already here. He is speaking about issues that STILL are being lived with today. Corrupt Leaders....The "NEW Order" ( The Kind that locked people in their homes for 3-4 years, twisted arms, disregaurded choices, and went after those who questioned, thought or openly objected) Speaks about how people love to claim brotherhood while spewing the opposite (I will not harm you, IF you believe like me, or don't question ESPECIALLY the State) So respectfully, NO... This is relatable then...in 1941....and now (80 Plus Years Later)

[@johnnymatheis1018]

I love the way all four of the German soldiers had different reactions. All six of the U boat survivors were quite different, and showed how a horrible Nazi machine could exist among them. Exceptional film. Exceptional scene.

[@tomhamilton5261]

Wonderful actor. So many brilliant performances thankfully committed to film for future generations to see and enjoy.

[@ange9663]

Eric Portman just the greatest

[@TH-nf1eo]

This is especially poignant and sobering when you learn that the screenwriter Emeric Pressburger lost his mother to Auschwitz and Anton Walbrook was an Austrian Jew who had to flee to Britain.

[@SaskiaVintage]

Yes, true

[@MajorDenisBloodnok]

+Thomas J. Herling Yes, Anton Walbrook, this great, talented, charismatic actor has often been Emeric Pressburger's voice maybe because their situation were quite similar: see the 2 wonderful speechs by Walbrook's character, Theo, in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Fortunately, as far as i know, Anton didn't lose his mother (who was from a family of Austrian jews converted to Roman Catholicism, whereas his father was a German Protestant: Anton was baptised and, as a boy, went to a catholic school in Vienna) or his sister.

[@TH-nf1eo]

+Major Denis Bloodnok I know Col. Blimp well. The "truth" monologue is one of finest in film, a very moving performance. I didn't know that about Walbrook's background. He's an actor who deserves much more recognition than he gets, particularly here in the States. I found his villain in "Gaslight" to be far more sinister than as played by Charles Boyer in the American version.

[@SaskiaVintage]

+Thomas J. Herling He indeed was an excellent actor, one character that to me is an amazing work by Walbrook is the queen of spades, based on a book by the same title by Pushkin. talk about being sinister!

[@MajorDenisBloodnok]

+Saskia Totally agree with you: The Queen of Spades is a wonderful movie directed by the talented Thorold Dickinson who also directed Gaslight. Great acting by AW but also by Dame Edith Evans in the role of the old, grotesque countess. I find this movie better than Gaslight. It is a shame that it is not very well known! Oh by the way Saskia, thank you for your wonderful videos on YT, especially the ones with Anton Walbrook! Some of his movies are very hard to find so, if you has some gems...

[@ishmyl99]

@david552 (cont.) and you have duly corrected me in my error. BTW, my spouse is Canadian. And I'm U.S. American, but am from a cultural heritage itself known for its own self-effacing and deferential conduct, almost to a fault. So, I can appreciate your point about the boorish mindset/conduct of too many, but certainly not all, of Canada's neighbors to the south. I'd hope to avoid the irony of making that mistake myself in the context of this exceptional movie excerpt. ;-) A good day to you.

[@murrayaronson3753]

Glynis Johns will be 100 this October. She’s probably the only player still traveling on Spaceship Earth.

[@loge10]

Saddened to hear that she has passed, just this month - on January 4th. She did get to reach the nice round age of 100.

[@SaskiaVintage]

@loris711 Thank you so much for your comment.

[@ishmyl99]

@david552 The irony of your comment was reflected in a piece by the late graphic designer Tibor Kalman. Kalman's exhibit was proposing ideas for a new Canadian national flag. One of them was an image of a canoe against a blank backdrop. That's it. The moment my Canadian husband saw it, he howled. Too bad I can't find a link to an image of it. I'd like to think you would've enjoyed the playful/mischievous/droll irony of Kalman's image -- as pointedly amusing as yours.

[@puma55792]

This speech should be shown and debated in every school if only to discourage racial hatred.

[@edawg1960]

Wow!

[@ishmyl99]

@david552 my apologies. Irony is sometimes difficult to detect when one can't hear a person's voice, or see their face and body language in online communications. No patronizing was intended on my part at all. In fact, I mistook your irony (which, now that I know what you meant) for a young person's innocent question, by someone in their early teens perhaps, who was not too familiar with history. Obviously, I was wrong...

[@saanzacs]

2:53

[@SaskiaVintage]

@youexx Yes:) very true

[@JBbloodsworn]

When the storm is over and the sun rises, that mighty sun, which will give us everything we need in life...

[@monto39]

LOVE this movie! Anti Nazi propaganda films are the goods!!

[@david552]

@ishmyl99 yeah thanks for that rather patronising response. My comment that was meant ironically, in reference to the reputation Canadians have for being self-effacing and apologetic, in contrast to their Southern neighbours loud patriotic boosterism.

[@david552]

3:40 ...is he being patriotic about... Canada?

[@jamscout75]

He is being patriotic to Christ. The Hutterites are very Christian, follow Jesus better than many "Christians"

[@ishmyl99]

@david552 He's referring to freedoms in Canada, as opposed to freedoms crushed amid the rise of fascism in Europe. Ironically, certain parts of Canada are highly racist and xenophobic to this day (as, sadly, are many countries and peoples around the world). But, in this movie and in its wartime context, that's not a point of discussion. Is the Peter character patriotic? Well, let's say deeply loyal to goodness, decency, truth, and freedom -- wherever these are embraced and defended.

[@64MDW]

It never ceases to amaze me how some Canadians can't seem to comment on anything whatsoever without inserting some trashy comment about the U.S. The U.S. may practice "loud patriotic boosterism," but what's more stomach-wrenching is the tiresome, smug pontificating from the moral high ground north of the border.

[@kevin_1230]

Americans far more loud and smug.

[@timmiddleditch7867]

As a Canadian. I agree. It is embarrassing to me to here such Smug nationalism.

[@samuelbaldwin3531]

as a Native person I can identify with what that first man said , not the second

[@loge10]

I'd be interested in hearing more - since the first was a total Nazi and the second was a leader of a pacifist religious sect, albeit transplants to Canada. Are you saying that Native persons should identify with Nazi ideology? I'm also intrigued that you got a heart from the original poster. This post has two speeches - very different. Now I'm not sure which the poster identifies with.

[@user-uk4in4ig3f]

HEIL DER STÜRMER !!!

[@richardbringhurst-mc5gy]

you should see the Bellingham Police Department police report submitted by Powell father about Powell son being accused of raping his sister, home listed as in Everson, Washington. It was a nonsensical report, but Powell is one of the surnames that attempted ficticious adoptions at one point or another, their way of then taking control of an estate trust that was attached to the adopted, then saying that as acting trustee on the behalf of the benefactor could have access to the trust estate and the financial accounts attached to it. What an improbable conspiracy, yet it happened. Take note of each of these surnames, as these are the surnames within the intelligence arms and legs that are essential components to why they are renegade houses. I'm really sure the powell son raped his sister, Powell dad. Feel free to verify my claims. Tootaloo.