If anything, "The 25th Hour" is more relevant today than when it was made. In 1967, it was mostly a look backward at the injustices visited upon the previous generation. Today -- in a world with new wars, new atrocities, new technology for killing, and new terminology like "ethnic cleansing" -- it really offers a timeless commentary on man's inhumanity to man.
Surprisingly, many contemporary reviews were quite negative -- none more so than that of Bosley Crowther in The New York Times. Of course, Crowther himself was mostly rooted in the past; he would likewise attack "Bonnie and Clyde" in much the same tone he did "The 25th Hour," and would be replaced the following year. But some critics at that time saw the film differently. Judith Crist, who surveyed upcoming films for TV Guide, wrote in 1971, "The 25th Hour, dealing with deportees and slave laborers during World War II, is a powerful drama, with Anthony Quinn memorable as a Romanian peasant survivor."
Her opinion is much closer to the mark. As the film opens, in 1939, simple Romanian peasant Johann Moritz (Anthony Quinn) and his wife Suzanna (the lovely Virna Lisi), are celebrating the baptism of their second son, with almost everyone dressed in colorful peasant costumes. But threatening clouds are on the horizon. When someone puts on the radio to let classical music lull the child to sleep, the infant is awakened and driven to agitation when the station switches to the rumblings of Adolf Hitler announcing the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
And then Moritz' life becomes a long, slow descent that, in many ways, stands in for the experiences of millions during those dark years. He and Suzanna simply wanted to eke out a peaceful existence raising their children, crops, and livestock; but the world outside had other ideas. First, the local police chief, Dobresco (Grégoire Aslan), takes a lustful interest in Suzanna, and gets rid of Moritz by claiming he is a Jew. As it happens, most of the local Jews (almost universally dressed in suits and hats, most carrying a suitcase) were being rounded up by the Romanian authorities for forced labor on a canal to defend against a possible Russian invasion.
And it is a moment soon after this that perhaps best encapsulates the entire movie, in an exchange between Moritz and his friend Marcou, whom he spots among the other deportees:
Moritz: Marcou! What am I doing here?
Marcou: What am *I* doing here?
Moritz: Well, with you it's -- it's different.
Marcou: What? Because I'm a Jew?
Moritz: Marcou, for you it's an injustice -- I agree! But for me, it's a mistake! A stupid mistake!
Marcou: The distinction escapes me.
And indeed, both are ordinary men, torn with no warning from their former lives and forced to work, more or less as slaves, with little hope of release. In the meantime, Suzanna, baffled by her husband's sudden disappearance, is forced to survive without him, raising their sons on her own and fending off the advances of Dobresco as best she can. Eventually, to save her home, she is forced to divorce Johann, while both of them are unable even to write letters to one another to help fill the long gap in their lives.
More strange twists are ahead for Moritz (who is forced to change his name several times as he is passed from one set of captors to another). Late in the film he is reunited with an old friend, Trajan Koruga (convincingly played by Italian actor Serge Reggiani), a novelist who once owned the only automobile in Moritz' home village. It is he who comes up with the phrase used for the title: the "25th hour" is a metaphor that, for those born at this time, in this place, the "normal" 24-hour day is over -- and a new, terrifying day has dawned.
The film's ends with two contrasting scenes. One is a haunting courtroom scene when Michael Redgrave (riveting in his brief appearance as Moritz' attorney) reads a letter from Suzanna detailing the horrors she underwent in her husband's absence. And then there is a final scene, at a supposedly happier moment for the characters, that is actually as dehumanizing and shattering as anything that has gone before. It will burn into your memory like nothing else in the film.
NOTE: This film has also fallen into obscurity in part because it has been overshadowed by an otherwise unrelated 2002 Spike Lee film starring Edward Norton, which shares the same title.
Surprisingly, many contemporary reviews were quite negative -- none more so than that of Bosley Crowther in The New York Times. Of course, Crowther himself was mostly rooted in the past; he would likewise attack "Bonnie and Clyde" in much the same tone he did "The 25th Hour," and would be replaced the following year. But some critics at that time saw the film differently. Judith Crist, who surveyed upcoming films for TV Guide, wrote in 1971, "The 25th Hour, dealing with deportees and slave laborers during World War II, is a powerful drama, with Anthony Quinn memorable as a Romanian peasant survivor."
Her opinion is much closer to the mark. As the film opens, in 1939, simple Romanian peasant Johann Moritz (Anthony Quinn) and his wife Suzanna (the lovely Virna Lisi), are celebrating the baptism of their second son, with almost everyone dressed in colorful peasant costumes. But threatening clouds are on the horizon. When someone puts on the radio to let classical music lull the child to sleep, the infant is awakened and driven to agitation when the station switches to the rumblings of Adolf Hitler announcing the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
And then Moritz' life becomes a long, slow descent that, in many ways, stands in for the experiences of millions during those dark years. He and Suzanna simply wanted to eke out a peaceful existence raising their children, crops, and livestock; but the world outside had other ideas. First, the local police chief, Dobresco (Grégoire Aslan), takes a lustful interest in Suzanna, and gets rid of Moritz by claiming he is a Jew. As it happens, most of the local Jews (almost universally dressed in suits and hats, most carrying a suitcase) were being rounded up by the Romanian authorities for forced labor on a canal to defend against a possible Russian invasion.
And it is a moment soon after this that perhaps best encapsulates the entire movie, in an exchange between Moritz and his friend Marcou, whom he spots among the other deportees:
Moritz: Marcou! What am I doing here?
Marcou: What am *I* doing here?
Moritz: Well, with you it's -- it's different.
Marcou: What? Because I'm a Jew?
Moritz: Marcou, for you it's an injustice -- I agree! But for me, it's a mistake! A stupid mistake!
Marcou: The distinction escapes me.
And indeed, both are ordinary men, torn with no warning from their former lives and forced to work, more or less as slaves, with little hope of release. In the meantime, Suzanna, baffled by her husband's sudden disappearance, is forced to survive without him, raising their sons on her own and fending off the advances of Dobresco as best she can. Eventually, to save her home, she is forced to divorce Johann, while both of them are unable even to write letters to one another to help fill the long gap in their lives.
More strange twists are ahead for Moritz (who is forced to change his name several times as he is passed from one set of captors to another). Late in the film he is reunited with an old friend, Trajan Koruga (convincingly played by Italian actor Serge Reggiani), a novelist who once owned the only automobile in Moritz' home village. It is he who comes up with the phrase used for the title: the "25th hour" is a metaphor that, for those born at this time, in this place, the "normal" 24-hour day is over -- and a new, terrifying day has dawned.
The film's ends with two contrasting scenes. One is a haunting courtroom scene when Michael Redgrave (riveting in his brief appearance as Moritz' attorney) reads a letter from Suzanna detailing the horrors she underwent in her husband's absence. And then there is a final scene, at a supposedly happier moment for the characters, that is actually as dehumanizing and shattering as anything that has gone before. It will burn into your memory like nothing else in the film.
NOTE: This film has also fallen into obscurity in part because it has been overshadowed by an otherwise unrelated 2002 Spike Lee film starring Edward Norton, which shares the same title.