big_O_Other I found this gem of a movie on television. Charles Laughton was outstanding. He conveyed perfectly the thesis of the film: that Nazism and the New World Order depended on corrupting those they occupied, tempting them with rewards for betraying their fellow countrymen more than even the brutal intimidation we are all familiar with.I was also quite interested to see the collaboration between the big industrialists and the Nazis, who corrupted them by catering to their anti-unionism. The fact that being against unions was a pillar of Nazi ideology has not been well known, but Renoir's film made it crystal clear.All the performances were well above par; Sanders played the self-seeking weasel who has a change of conscience very well, in a very legible, nuanced way. Maureen O'Hara was also excellent, as always.But it was Charles Laughton, standing before the collaborators, Nazis and his own mother as he comes to realize how crucial the Rights of Man are to living decently and honorably, who wins the day.

mark.waltz From what I knew about this film, I wasn't expecting all that much since the critical reception I've read wasn't all that good. However, it is actually a rather good story about the Nazi's invasion of France. A milquetoast teacher (Charles Laughton), dominated by his harridan mother (Una O'Connor), finds he must fight for his principals and beliefs when the Nazis take over his town. He is in love with a fellow school teacher (the beautiful Maureen O'Hara---who wouldn't be?) whose brother (Kent Smith) is doing his best to sabotage the Nazis and ends up being betrayed by O'Hara's fiancée (George Sanders), who secretly supports the Nazis. Laughton is accused of his murder and put on trial. He decides to face his fate with dignity and departs his classroom after making a riveting speech to his students that is pure propaganda but magnificent drama! O'Connor may grate on the nerves at times, but everything she does for the obsessive love for her son is believable. O'Hara as always is a combination of graceful beauty and indestructible feistiness. Sanders makes the most scary civilized villain-the worst kind. He makes a good pair with Nazi Walter Slezak (later the Nazi villain in Hitchcock's "Lifeboat"); To see one clean hand (Sanders) washing the other one (Slezak's) and becoming equally filthy (metaphorically speaking) is very interesting, and makes Sanders' downfall most gratifying.

blanche-2 Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, George Sanders, Walter Slezak, Kent Smith, and Una O'Connor star in "This Land is Mine," a 1943 film directed by Jean Renoir.The story takes place in a nameless small town in Europe where the Nazis have taken over - somewhere in France, perhaps. In this town, you can find a microcosm of all citizens living under oppression: there are collaborators, secret collaborators, and resistance workers. The majority of the people simply go along with what is happening, live by the rules, and hope to survive. Albert Lory (Charles Laughton) is one of the latter, a wimpy schoolmaster with a pushy mother and an out of control classroom. He's secretly in love with the beautiful Louise Martin (O'Hara), who is engaged to George Lambert (Sanders). Lambert is secretly collaborating with the Nazis, while Louise's brother Paul (Kent Smith) acts for all the world like a collaborator but is secretly a resistance worker. When an act of sabotage occurs, the Nazis take hostages until the perpetrator is found. Albert is one of them. This sets off a series of events that will lead to Albert becoming a changed man."This Land is Mine" is a beautiful, stirring film and a great piece of propaganda that, in its day, set box office records when it opened. Charles Laughton is magnificent as a coward who finds his voice, and uses it to convey his message in several monologues, delivered with simplicity and honesty. Acting as good as you will find anywhere, at any time. Great acting never goes out of style. Walter Slezak is excellent as a Nazi leader, having nailed down this type of role for himself after playing the superman German in "Lifeboat." All of the performances are very good.I do agree with one reviewer here that they could have cast someone else as Albert's mother besides Una O'Connor. She's a little too cartoonish. I'm thinking of someone truly menacing like Margaret Wycherly from "White Heat." At the time of this film, she would have been 62; Laughton was 44. She would have been fantastic.Highly recommended - this film probably meant a lot to movie audiences during World War II.

ackstasis WWII propaganda reached its glorious peak in 1943. You can find anything from gripping war-time thrillers like Wilder's 'Five Graves to Cairo' to preachy, predictable full-blown propaganda pieces like Dmytryk's 'Hitler's Children.' Jean Renoir did his duty, as well. When Germany invaded and occupied France in 1940, the French director fled to the United States, where he found it difficult to find film projects that suited his unique skills and interests. 'This Land is Mine (1943)' was obviously very close to Renoir's heart, for his own homeland was now under Nazi control; indeed, despite an opening title card that vaguely specifies a city "somewhere in Europe," he obviously has a French locale in mind. The film works, aside from Renoir's skills as a director, because of the level of respect shown towards the audience. It doesn't speak down to them from a podium, but rather addresses them as comrades, all men and women being equal. It's a call for action; a plea for courage. If the Germans are to be defeated, we must be willing to place everything on the line.It's also beneficial that Renoir had a stellar cast with which to work. Maureen O'Hara is pretty and independent as a patriotic school-teacher who doesn't bother to hide her disdain towards the Germans. Her boyfriend, played by the ever-charming George Sanders, is a smarmy businessman who would rather cooperate with his enemies than feel the sear of their bullets. Walter Slezak, the captured Nazi captain in Hitchock's 'Lifeboat (1944),' plays the German commander who manipulates the oppressed French with sickly appeals to their sense of righteousness. But the film belongs to Charles Laughton. Though he himself only helmed the production of one film (a little thriller called 'The Night of the Hunter (1955)'), directors easily related to him because, unlike most of Hollywood's leading men, he was not a generically handsome and romantic lover, but a generously-proportioned man with substantially more personality than looks. Furthermore, he could play it mean, which pleased directors like Hitchcock and Wilder, or he could play it sympathetic, which more closely suited Dieterle and Renoir.In his excellent book "The Hitchock Murders," critic Peter Conrad proposes that Charles Laughton's characters in two Alfred Hitchcock movies, 'Jamaica Inn (1939)' and 'The Paradine Case (1949),' served to symbolise the director's own unspoken thoughts and desires; Laughton, in effect, played the role that Hitchcock himself would have played had he been comfortable with any more than a brief appearance in each of his films. I can see Jean Renoir utilising Laughton in the same manner, employing him as a doppelganger of sorts. Renoir was quite used to playing important roles in his own films, but obviously his leading man in a Hollywood production had to be somebody more recognisable. Not only did he choose an actor with whom he shared a reasonable physical likeness, but his character is reminiscent in many ways of Renoir's role in 'The Rules of the Game (1939). Like Octave, Albert Lory is humble, softly-spoken and utterly lonely in love, but clearly forms the emotional backbone of the picture, for it is he with whom the audience most closely sympathises.