The scene with the Hutterites is great, but the whole movie also works well. Leslie Howard does a ob playing a wealthy dandy who is tougher than he looks, and above all, values good sportsmanship. This is probably the greatest propaganda movie I have ever seen.
It is especially pertinent because my English ancestors emigrated to Canada and were pioneers on the prairie.
I just watched "The Great Dictator." Chaplin's speech at the climax of the movie is fantastic as well.
Mark Steyn’s excellent review, which got me to watch it.
https://www.steynonline.com/7956/49th-parallel
My Canadian wife also approves of this movie.
I just added it to my queue on DVD.com (netflix). From their description:
The great Laurence Olivier leads an impressive cast in this wartime thriller about a Nazi U-boat crew stranded in Canada during World War II. Led by the fanatical Lt. Hirth (Eric Portman), the crew finds refuge in a small rural community while planning an escape across the border of the still neutral United States. An early work from British director Michael Powell, the film was seen as a propaganda piece urging America to join the Allied effort.
Cast: Eric Portman, Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, Richard Epcar, Raymond Lovell, Niall MacGinnis, Peter Moore, John Chandos, Basil Appleby, Finlay Currie, Ley On, Anton Walbrook, Glynis Johns, Charles Victor, Frederick Piper, Raymond Massey
Director: Michael Powell
Great film. Wonderful to get a look at Canada circa 1940. And the scene in the teepee at the lake. The actor who played the author and refined gentleman died about a year later. Germans shot down his airliner between Spain and England.
Any movie produced by “The Archers” Michael Powell, director, and Emeric Pressburger, writer, are worth watching. Among my top favs by The Archers are “I Know Where I’m Going”, “One of our Airplanes is Missing”, “49th Parallel” and others.
The entire Film industry of Britain focuse on WWII films during the war because the industry had been shuttered in WWI. This was an adjustment that kept them working.
Leslie Howard became a producer/director of WWII films: “The Gentle Sex”, “The Story of the Spitfire”, his greatest which must have put a price on his head by the Nazis, “Pimpernel Smith”. Howard was on a top secret mission to Spain for the British high command. His plane was shot from the skies and he was lost. Better known as “Ashley” in “Gone With the Wind”, he also starred in Bernard Shaw’s film version of “Pygmalian”.
The “propaganda” films churned out during WWII by the Brits show how a country stands together against those who would end her.
The title, 49th Parallel is a reference to the 49th line of latitude, and that is largely the dividing line for Canada and the United States.
[That, of course, excepting Port Roberts, Washington.]