Cross No. 7

I've got a couple of World War II movies that I haven't blogged about before on my DVR. One that's technically not a war movie, although it was released during the war and is set in Nazi Germany, is the Spencer Tracy movie The Seventh Cross.

The movie opens up with a shot of several crosses outside one of the old concentration camps inside the borders of Nazi Germany as it was before they annexed any territory or other countries declared war on them; these were not quite the same as the extermination camps set up in present-day Poland to kill the Jews, and had a bunch of political prisoners. Seven men escape from the camp, and one of them, Wallau (Ray Collins), narrates their story, even though he gets captured early on and killed. Since most of them get caught, and Wallau is narrating from beyond the grave, it's mostly the story of one escapee, Georg Heisler (Spencer Tracy).

Heisler along with the others, escaped, but doesn't really have anywhere to go. At least, not many places that could offer him any amount of safety. However, Wallau had been talking about going to Mainz since he had a friend there who is part of the anti-Nazi resistance and might be able to help the men get forged documents that would allow them to travel somewhere, hopefully out of Germany. So Heisler heads there even though he's got a badly injured hand.

The Nazis are making a big deal out of trying to find Georg, no surprise, and are watching as many people who knew Georg as they can think of. As a result, those people who would like to help Georg find themselves unable to do so since they can't reach Georg. The best he can do is see an old girlfriend Leni (Kaaren Verne), but she's no longer able to help him. He's able to get help from a couple of Jews who already know what's coming for them in Nazi Germany, but that is once again only temporary.

Eventually, Georg can only think of one person left who knew him and who, as far as Georg knows, doesn't have any political views, which seems astonishing in a country like Nazi Germany: factory worker Paul Roeder (Hume Cronyn). Paul now has a wife Liesel (Jessica Tandy, who was of course Paul's real-life wife) and kid, and doesn't seem to know anything about Georg's wanted status or why he just suddenly dropped out of society. Paul, however, is fundamentally decent, so he decides that he's going to try to come up with some way to help Georg, even though it's going to put himself in great danger.

There's still a good ways to go in the movie, however, so Georg has a lot more hiding to do until he can either get out of the country or be caught. Considering when the movie was made, I think you can guess how the movie ends.

The Seventh Cross is one of the earliest movies directed in Hollywood by Fred Zinnemann, who does a fine job here. Unsurprisingly, Tracy is also quite good even though I don't think of him as realistically German. Neither is Hume Cronyn, who got an Oscar nomination for his part. If the movie has any flaws, it's in the script which doesn't really get to be subtle since the movie had to be something that would please American audiences during the war. In that regard it succeeds in spades. The Seventh Cross is a fine example of a World War II-era suspense movie.