Springtime for Hitler

It may all be Zero Mostel's fault.

In the 1968 film The Producers, he played a zany impresario dedicated to staging a Broadway musical called Springtime for Hitler, a rococo recounting of the good old days in the Thousand Year Reich. Against all expectations, Mostel's musical was a smash --which turns out to have been prophetic. In the entertainment world nowadays, Hitler's springtime does indeed seem to have arrived.

In London, the cameras are turning on Hitler--The Last Ten Days, and Sir Alec Guinness, complete with toothbrush mustache and special black hair piece, is playing the Fuehrer. A spoof on Hitler's return, starring Peter Sellers, goes into production next year. Also scheduled is a film based on Inside the Third Reich, the autobiography of Albert Speer, Hitler's chief architect. Then there are the Hitler books, at least eight published so far this year in the U.S. British television in recent months has unreeled three major reports on the Nazi era, and Carl Foreman is sketching in the details of a 26-installment BBC series on Hitler.

The plot of the Sellers movie involves a campaign by The Phantom --yes, the comic-strip hero--to extract the 90-year-old Hitler (played by Sellers) from the jungles of South America and bring him to justice. The climax: Adolf's appearance at London's Royal Albert Hall. The Speer bearers will be more sober. Sandy Lieberson, a partner in the British syndicate that owns screen rights to the book, says that while Hitler will figure in their movie, they will eschew a name actor for the role in order to avoid critical comparisons between their Hitler and that of Sir Alec.

Guinness has worked hard on Hitlerian mannerisms: the walk, the deep, throaty voice, the oddly limp salute. He has studied newsreels, books and photographs, even interviewed a survivor of those last days in the bunker. At that time, says Guinness, "Hitler was almost senile; at the age of 56, he was 70. He took pep pills, and at times he would have fits. At other times he would get the giggles. I try to convey that comic side. You know, he could be extremely childlike as well as childish."

Guinness's script was written by Italian Screenwriter-Director Ennio de Concini, Maria Pia Fusco, and Austrian Producer Wolfgang Reinhardt, son of famed Director Max Reinhardt. In persuading Guinness to take the part, De Concini recalls, "I told him I saw the last days in the bunker like floating into nowhere in a first-class jumbo jet. You go into unreality, between life and death--der Fuehrer crying, Eva Braun dancing to Tea for Two, the Nazi empire falling into destruction. I wanted to film all this in the manner of an 8-mm. movie."

Almost the only set for the movie is a replica of the Fuehrerbunker, complete with German magazines of the period and other authentic memorabilia. Through it drift re-creations of the familiar faces of three decades ago: Braun, Martin Bormann, Joseph Goebbels and Alfred Jodl. In his scenes, Guinness strives for a balance between evil and humanity. "Once you start playing a person, it becomes unbelievable if you have him snarling all the time," he says. "I try to indicate a certain sympathy--the sympathy I have for a childish murderer like Macbeth."

Why the resurgence of interest in Hitler? The relative remoteness of the Hitler era, especially to the younger generation; the widespread fascination with violence and the banality of evil --these would seem to be among the contributing factors. Guinness feels the condition of contemporary society may be part of it too. Says he: "The situation in England--strikes every week, a decadent, yes decadent life, all these depressing things. People say, why not get someone else to sort it all out for them. In situations like this, it is always possible for a strong man to appear and be welcomed by so many people."

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