A love story, wartime thriller, and social commentary set during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Artfully shot in black and white, and undergirded by a strong musical track, it explores the risks of sheltering a Jewish fugitive whose a life might be saved (or might not), but where the lives of many bystanders are thereby put in peril.
Fritz Lang's earlier US-made "Hangmen Also Die" dealt with the same historical event (the assassination of occupation head Gen. Heydrich), but his was a more kinetic and extroverted treatment compared to Weiss' more personal, introspective, and poetic view. In a sense, this is the Anne Frank story moved from Amsterdam to Prague.
Fritz Lang's earlier US-made "Hangmen Also Die" dealt with the same historical event (the assassination of occupation head Gen. Heydrich), but his was a more kinetic and extroverted treatment compared to Weiss' more personal, introspective, and poetic view. In a sense, this is the Anne Frank story moved from Amsterdam to Prague.