Thursday, July 30, 2020

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! THEY CAME TO BLOW UP AMERICA (1943) STARRING GEORGE SANDERS, ANNA STEN, DENNIS HOEY, WARD BOND AND RALPH BYRD!

Great moom here. Thought I was gonna hate the thing because well, it's a World War II film and sometimes those can get a little too sappy in the patrioats dept. for my liking. That's but one reason I always seem to be rootin' for the Nazis and Hirohito when I sit down in front of some of these wartime crankouts! Take that you goody too shoes boy from Brooklyn with the freckles on your face and the song in your heart!!!!

I'll put some of this home 'n country aversion aside for once since THE CAME TO BLOW UP AMERIGA entertains on all levels from the great z-film style to the general acting. George Sanders plays it pretty cool as the undercover Bund member for the FBI who goes back to der faterland in order to learn sabotage techniques to use back home, in the meanwhile meeting up with Anna Sten as a cutesypie Austrian working for the allies who hides anti-nazi messages in hollow candles. 

It holds yer attention and has some pretty downhome emotional acting like in that scene where FBI agent Ward Bond visits Sanders' ailing because his son is a traitor father (played by that little old winemaker you usedta see on tee-vee if yer over 70) to tell him that his son is really working for the goodskis. Also great is the part where the real wife of the Nazi that Sanders is impersonating is made out not only by Sanders but eventually her own words to look crazy and is locked up, eventually getting a bullet when she proves too dangerous to let out with the truth! Kinda makes up for the part where Sten is interrogated by a Nazi who is throwing darts at a pic of Winston Churchill...sheesh!

A not bad way to spend some free time since THEY CAME TO BLOW UP AMERIGA has everything I and perhaps even you if yer not some tightass worldsaving type would want in a moom. Action, tension, believable characters and an early-forties directness that cuts out the extraneous gunk that coulda padded this 'un up somewhat. Best of all the Nazis, even though they look cool 'n all in those uniforms and are hep enough to shoot women in cold blood, ain't any more attractive to this reviewer who actually was rootin' for the home team this time! One to catch if they ever bring back The Late Late Late Show.

2 comments:

MoeLarryAndJesus said...

Things No Longtime Reader Of BTC Has Ever Said:

"I can't believe Stigs was rooting for Nazis."

New York 'Dolf said...

"Kinda makes up for the part where Sten is interrogated by a Nazi who is throwing darts at a pic of Winston Churchill..."

LOL