As a journeyman director in Hollywood from the late ‘30s through the ‘60s, André de Toth displayed a mastery of numerous genres. His best and most widely acclaimed film, Day of the Outlaw, is a western, while his most famous, House of Wax, is horror. Both Crime Wave and Pitfall show his proficiency for noir, and even with his final film, the brilliant adventure/war film, Play Dirty, he continued to break new ground. Yet, despite the popularity of all of these films and a 2019 Blu-ray release, de Toth’s prescient and dynamic post-World War II film, None Shall Escape, remains a hidden gem, having racked up fewer than 1,000 ratings on IMDb.
Released during the war in 1944, de Toth’s film sets itself after the war has ended and presumes that the Allied Forces were victorious. Yet None Shall Escape is not some sort of doe-eyed act of hopeful wish fulfillment. Rather, it is a deeply moving, preemptive cry for moral justice in the face of evil as well as an exacting examination of the development of fascistic thought. Indeed, the film sees the potential end of World War II as only the first step of defeating fascism and spends the entirety of its brisk, brutally efficient 85 minutes focusing on the war tribunal held to charge a Nazi officer, Wilhelm Grimm (Alexander Knox), with crimes against humanity. The actual Nuremberg trials would take place the following year, but even in 1944, the promises nations made to hold Nazis criminally responsible for their heinous actions was just that—mere promises.
Using the testimony of three people who know Wilhelm—his former fiancé, Marja (Marsha Hunt), a priest, Father Warecki (Henry Travers), and his brother, Karl (Erik Rolf)— None Shall Escape weaves through an intricate array of flashbacks that track how Wilhelm’s personal tragedies (he lost a leg in the First World War) and failings led him to gradually embrace Hitler’s ideology in Weimar Era Germany. Aside from its structural ingenuity, with sharp editing that moves seamlessly through multiple decades, and cinematographer Lee Garmes’ gorgeous, fluid camerawork, often recalling the films of Max Ophuls, the film also directly confronts the notion that Americans were mostly unaware of the extent of Nazi evils until after the war was over.
In Wilhelm’s relationship with Marja in the ‘20s, we see how his extreme self-loathing alienates him from her, causing his feelings of love to wither and morph into self-righteous hostility. His strongly held nationalistic beliefs are already evident in his condescending comments about Marja’s Polish heritage and her fellow townsfolk, but it’s his own deeply held insecurities that leave him so vulnerable to Hitler’s strong man rhetoric. None Shall Escape proceeds in detailing Wilhelm’s escalating involvement with the Nazi Party, capturing how his deficiencies, particularly his refusal to show any form of weakness, ultimately make him ripe for being subsumed into the fascist power structure.
As the film moves into Father Warecki and Karl’s testimonies, its perspective gradually shifts from micro to macro. It continues to remain critical of Wilhelm’s specific actions, making clear-eyed arguments that he’s always acting of his own free will, but also examines how part of the reason the Nazis ascended to power was that many Germans saw Hitler’s rhetoric as purely absurd and his ideology as so extremist it could easily be dismissed as a joke. In a genuinely terrifying twist of fate, we see Karl laughing off the content of Hitler’s early speeches and repeatedly refusing to take Wilhelm’s involvement with the Party with any gravity only to have that love and respect lead Wilhelm to send him to a concentration camp.
It’s a savage reminder that the violent rhetoric and promises of fascists, however outlandish they seem at the time, will be followed through whenever possible. And as the film moves into its final act, it shows how these personal betrayals are simply another step toward the full embracement of the dehumanizing mindset that allows seemingly ordinary people to commit horrific acts against innocent people. In the film’s bleakest scene, Wilhelm organizes the transportation of hundreds of Jews to a concentration camp, only to have them all gunned down as a rabbi pleads with them to be strong.
None Shall Escape stands as one of Hollywood’s earliest depictions of Nazi brutality, and while it never shows the inside of a concentration camp, it is resolute in its depiction of the widespread peril that awaited millions of Jews. However, what lends the film its staying power to this day is the way it dissects not only the mental gymnastics that fascists engage with, but the dangers of underestimating them, or the refusal to hold them accountable long after the fact. It’s a fascinating wartime document that’s more nuanced and perceptive than many other films of its era, and nearly 80 years later, it’s still a resounding call to arms against the forces of oppression.
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