Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas
Encyclopedia
Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas was a major war film made by Twentieth Century Fox in 1943. The film starred Philip Dorn
Philip Dorn
Philip Dorn , born Hein van der Niet and sometimes billed as Frits van Dongen, was a Dutch actor who had a career in Hollywood....

, Anna Sten
Anna Sten
Anna Sten was a Ukrainian-born Russian silent film actress and later a Hollywood film star. She began her career in stage plays and films in Russia before travelling to Germany, where she starred in several films...

, and Martin Kosleck
Martin Kosleck
Martin Kosleck was a German film actor. Like many other German actors, he fled when the Nazis came to power. Inspired by his deep hatred of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, Kosleck would make a career in Hollywood playing villainous Nazis in films. While in the United States, he would appear in more...

. The movie, originally titled The Seventh Column, was directed by Louis King
Louis King
Louis King was an American actor and movie director of westerns and adventure movies in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. He was born on June 28, 1898 in Christiansburg, Virginia....

 based on a story by Jack Andrews, who also co-wrote the screenplay. The film was produced by Sol M. Wurtzel
Sol M. Wurtzel
Sol M. Wurtzel was an American motion picture producer.Born in New York City, New York, Sol M. Wurtzel worked as an executive assistant to William Fox, founding owner of the Fox Film Corporation. In 1917, Fox sent him to California to oversee the studio's West Coast productions...

 and Bryan Foy, who also produced Guadalcanal Diary
Guadalcanal Diary (film)
Guadalcanal Diary is a 1943 World War II war film starring Preston Foster, Lloyd Nolan, William Bendix, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn and the film debut of Richard Jaeckel...

(1943), Berlin Correspondent (1942), and PT 109
PT 109 (film)
PT 109 is a 1963 biographical film which depicts the actions of John F. Kennedy in command of Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 as an officer of the United States Navy during World War II. The movie was adapted by Vincent Flaherty and Howard Sheehan from the book PT 109: John F. Kennedy in World War II by...

(1963). The musical score was by Hugo Friedhofer
Hugo Friedhofer
Hugo Wilhelm Friedhofer was an American film music composer born in San Francisco. His father was a cellist trained in Dresden, Germany; his mother, Eva König, was born in Germany.Friedhofer began playing cello at the age of 13...

, who won an Academy Award for Best Score in 1946 for The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler, and starring Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell, a United States paratrooper who lost both hands in a military training accident. The film is about three United States...

. The movie was announced in Boxoffice magazine in the May 30, 1942 issue: "'The Seventh Column,' a story based on exploits of General Draja Mihailovitch
Draža Mihailovic
Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general during World War II...

, Yugoslav guerilla leader." The movie appears in the American Film Institute (AFI
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

) catalogue for American feature films made between 1941–1950, Brassey's Guide to War Films, and is on the IMDB, American Movie Classics (AMC), TV Guide, and on the Turner Classic Movie (TCM) database. A similar film, Undercover, was made in 1943 by Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever since...

 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 starring John Clements
John Clements
Sir John Selby Clements, CBE was an English actor and producer who worked in theatre, television and film.Clements attended St Paul's School and St John's College, Cambridge University then worked with Nigel Playfair and afterwards spent a few years in Ben Greet's Shakespearean Company. He made...

 and Michael Wilding
Michael Wilding (actor)
-Early life:Born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, Wilding was a successful commercial artist when he joined the art department of a London film studio in 1933. He soon embarked on an acting career.-Career:...

, whose original title was Chetnik.

The movie was advertised in an original print ad as follows:
"ANNOUNCING -- THE MOST STIRRING PICTURE RELEASED THIS YEAR! THRILL FOLLOWS THRILL IN THIS LIVING DRAMA...THAT FLAMES OUT OF TODAY'S ELECTRIFYING HEADLINES! THIS VERY MOMENT...A Nazi troop train is being destroyed...! Live, love, fight with Draja Mihailovitch and his fighting guerrillas."

Plot

In the opening scene, German troops and tanks are shown invading Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...

 while bombers attack the capital Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. When the Germans, Italians, Hungarians, and Bulgarians invade Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, Serbian army colonel Draža Mihailović
Draža Mihailovic
Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general during World War II...

 forms a band of guerrillas known as the Chetniks
Chetniks
Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...

, who launch a resistance movement against the Axis occupation. Mihailović's forces then engage in an attack on the German and Italian forces, forcing them to employ seven Axis divisions against them.

The Chetniks capture an Italian supply convoy. Mihailović then radios German headquarters in the nearby town of Kotor
Kotor
Kotor is a coastal city in Montenegro. It is located in a secluded part of the Gulf of Kotor. The city has a population of 13,510 and is the administrative center of the municipality....

 and offers to exchange Italian POWs for gasoline. Infuriated, general Von Bauer refuses, but when Mihailović threatens to notify the Italian High Command of his decision, Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 colonel Wilhelm Brockner orders Von Bauer to comply.

Brockner, who has been unable to capture Mihailović, is convinced that the Yugoslav leader's wife Ljubica and their two children, Nada and Mirko, are hiding in Kotor. He plans to use them as hostages to blackmail Mihailović into surrendering. Brockner warns the townspeople that anyone caught aiding the Mihailović family will be executed, and prepares the deportation of 2,000 men from Kotor to Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

.

Brockner's secretary Natalia, however, is a spy for the Chetniks and is in love with Alexa, one of Mihailovitch's aides. Forewarned by Natalia's information, the Chetniks attack the train transporting the two thousand prisoners and free them. In retaliation, Brockner decrees that no food will be distributed to the citizens of Kotor until Lubitca and her children are turned over to the Germans. Lubitca tries to surrender to Brockner but is stopped by Natalia, after which Mihailovitch asks to meet with Von Bauer and Brockner.

After Mihailović arrives at German headquarters, however, Von Bauer declares that, since the official Yugoslav government had capitulated, international law does not prevent him from killing Mihailović, even though they are meeting under a flag of truce. Mihailović then reveals to the general that the Chetniks are holding his wife and daughter as hostages, as well as Brockner's mistress, and that they will be executed unless the citizens of Kotor are not given food. The general angrily releases Mihailović and provides rations for Kotor.

Mihailović's son Mirko, demonstrating his patriotism, betrays his true identity to his German schoolteacher. After taking Mirko into custody, Von Bauer and Brockner escort Ljubica to Mihailović's mountain stronghold and then inform him that every man, woman, and child in Kotor would be executed unless the Chetniks surrender within 18 hours.

Mihailović informs Ljubica that he cannot surrender. She then returns to Kotor to comfort their children. Mihailović immediately organizes a plan of attack and sends some of his men to the mountain pass to Kotor, where they trick the Germans into thinking that they are surrendering, while the rest of the Chetniks attack the town from the mountains on the other side.

Even though Aleksa, who was assigned to infiltrate the German artillery, is taken prisoner by the Germans, Mihailović's plan succeeds. After an intense battle, the Chetniks gain control of Kotor and free all of the hostages, including Mihailović's family.

In the final scene, Mihailović broadcasts a radio message to his fellow Yugoslavs that the guerrillas will continue fighting until they have regained complete freedom for their people and driven out the invading Axis troops.

Critical Reception

The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

 reviewed the movie favorably on March 19, 1943 after it was shown in New York at the Globe in a review by “T.M.P.”, Thomas M. Pryor. Pryor wrote that the movie was “splendidly acted” and that it had “the right spirit”.

Hal Erickson of All Movie Guide (AMG) reviewed the movie favorably also, describing how Draza Mihailovich was vindicated and exonerated by events after the war. Erickson wrote that the movie portrayed Mihailovich as “a selfless idealist, leading his resistance troops, known as the Chetniks, on one raid after another against the Germans during WWII”

The movie was reviewed favorably in the Los Angeles entertainment trade paper The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...

when released in 1943: "Seldom has Hollywood given attention to a motion picture that offered more stirring material than this first feature about a living military hero of World War II."

In a review in the Chicago Daily Tribune on April 1, 1943, "Chetniks' Story Is Dramatically Told in Movie 'CHETNIKS'", Mae Tinee wrote: "This is a fiercely satisfying picture. We all know about the Chetniks, fighting guerrillas of JugoSlavia. We devour every word we can find to read about them--and a lot of us dream of them.... Now comes the movie ..."

The movie was shown in movie theaters nationwide in the U.S. in 1943. The movie was shown at the Globe in New York City on March 18, the B & K Apollo in Chicago, the Williamsburg Theatre in Virginia on Sunday, February 21, 1943 as The Fighting Guerrillas ‘Chetniks’, at the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto California, and the Quilna Theatre in Lima, Ohio. The film was shown as a double feature in some theaters in 1943, paired with We Are the Marines
We Are the Marines
We Are the Marines is a 1942 full-length documentary film. It was directed by Louis De Rochemont and distributed by 20th Century Fox.-Plot:...

(1942), a documentary on the U.S. Marine Corps.

According to a story in the April 3, 1943 Boxoffice magazine, "Chicago Mayor in PA For 'Chetniks' Debut", Chicago Mayor Edward J. Kelly attended a debut showing at the B & K Apollo theater after proclaiming "Chetnik Day" in Chicago on April 1.

After the war, the movie was pulled from circulation after Mihailovitch was accused of war crimes and executed.

Cast

  • Philip Dorn
    Philip Dorn
    Philip Dorn , born Hein van der Niet and sometimes billed as Frits van Dongen, was a Dutch actor who had a career in Hollywood....

     as General Draža Mihailović
    Draža Mihailovic
    Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović was a Yugoslav Serbian general during World War II...

  • Anna Sten
    Anna Sten
    Anna Sten was a Ukrainian-born Russian silent film actress and later a Hollywood film star. She began her career in stage plays and films in Russia before travelling to Germany, where she starred in several films...

     as Ljubica Mihailović
  • Shepperd Strudwick
    Shepperd Strudwick
    Shepperd Strudwick was an American actor of film, television, and stage....

     (credited as John Shepperd) as Lt. Aleksa Petrović, Mihailović's aide
  • Martin Kosleck
    Martin Kosleck
    Martin Kosleck was a German film actor. Like many other German actors, he fled when the Nazis came to power. Inspired by his deep hatred of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, Kosleck would make a career in Hollywood playing villainous Nazis in films. While in the United States, he would appear in more...

     as Gestapo Colonel Wilhelm Brockner
  • Virginia Gilmore
    Virginia Gilmore
    Virginia Gilmore was an American film, stage, and television actress.-Biography:Virginia Gilmore was born as Sherman Virginia Poole in El Monte, California. Her father was a retired officer of the British Army. Gilmore began her stage career in San Francisco at the age of 15, but moved to Los...

     as Natalia, Brockner's secretary
  • Felix Basch as German Army General von Bauer
  • Frank Lackteen
    Frank Lackteen
    Frank Lackteen was a Lebanese-born American film actor best known for his antagonistic roles. He appeared in nearly 200 films between 1916 and 1965, including several Three Stooges shorts. He was born in Kubber-Ilias, Lebanon and died in Los Angeles, California...

     as Major Danilov
  • LeRoy Mason
    LeRoy Mason
    LeRoy Mason was an American film actor. He died on the set of California Firebrand after suffering a heart attack.-Selected filmography:The following were with John Wayne:* Maker of Men...

     as Captain Savo
  • Patricia Prest as Nada, Mihailović's daughter
  • Merrill Rodin as Mirko, Mihailović's son
  • Lisa Golm (uncredited) as Frau Spitz, a schoolteacher
  • John Banner
    John Banner
    John Banner , born Johann Banner, was an American film and television actor, who was born and died in Vienna, Austria....

     (uncredited) as Gestapo agent
  • Gino Corrado
    Gino Corrado
    Gino Corrado was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 355 films between 1916 and 1954, almost always in small roles as a character actor.-Career:...

     (uncredited) as Italian Lieutenant
  • Nestor Paiva
    Nestor Paiva
    Nestor Paiva was an American actor of Portuguese descent who portrayed the innkeeper on Walt Disney's live-action television series Zorro by ABC and its feature film The Sign of Zorro which was shot in Burbank's Walt Disney Studios.-Career:Nestor appeared in motion pictures and television shows...

     (uncredited) as Italian Major
  • Richard Ryen
    Richard Ryen
    Richard Ryen was an Hungarian born actor who was expelled from Germany by the Nazis prior to World War II....

     (uncredited) as radio announcer

Sources

  • Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas on IMDB.
  • Hanson, Patricia King, ed. The American Film Institute (AFI
    American Film Institute
    The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

    ) Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Feature Films, 1941-1950
    . Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1999. "Chetniks!", pages 411-412.
  • Evans, Alun, editor. Brassey's Guide to War Films. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, Inc., 2000.
  • Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas at the TCM website.
  • Answers.com article on Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas.
  • New York Times movie review, Movie Review, Chetniks - The Fighting Guerrillas (1943), March 19, 1943 by NYT movie critic T.M.P., Thomas M. Pryor.
  • Hal Erickson review of Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas on All Movie Guide (AMC).
  • Dick, Bernard F. The Star-Spangled Screen: The American World War II Film. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1985, reprinted in 1996. Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas is analyzed on pp. 163–165.
  • Lees, Michael. The Rape of Serbia: The British Role in Tito's Grab for Power, 1943-1944. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.
  • Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas: A Critical Reappraisal in 2008 by Carl Savich.
  • "The Chetniks", Treasury Star Parade, radio recording, episode #101 starring Orson Welles
    Orson Welles
    George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

     and Vincent Price
    Vincent Price
    Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...

    , produced by the U.S. Treasury Department, 1942, written by Violet Atkins, produced by William A. Bacher.
  • LIFE magazine, pages 32–33, July 15, 1946, "Mihailovich Awaits the Verdict". Photo essay entitled "Mihailovich: Chetnik leader fights for his life before open Yigoslav court-martial." LIFE photographs by John Phillips.
  • Smith, Richard Harris. OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2005.
  • Jareb, Mario. (2006). "How the West Was Won: The Yugoslav Government-in-Exile and the Legend of Draza Mihailovich." Journal of Contemporary History, 3.
  • Savich, Carl. (2003). "Draza Mihailovich and the Rescue of U.S. Airmen during World War II.", Serbian Unity Congress.
  • Real Heroes Comics, #6, September, 1942. "Chief of the 'Chetniks': Draja Mihailovich." New York: Parents' Magazine Institute, pages 13–18.
  • Real Life Comics, #8, November, 1942, Vol. 3, No. 2, "Draja Mihailovitch: The Yugoslav MacArthur." Mew York: Nedor Publishing.
  • Goulart, Ron. Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books: The Definitive Illustrated History from the 1890s to the 1980s. NY: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary, 1986. "Draza Mihajlovic", index entry, p. 202.
  • Sava, George. The Chetniks. London, UK: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1942.
  • Tamas, Istvan. Sergeant Nikola; A Novel of the Chetnik Brigades. NY: L.B. Fischer Publishing Corporation, 1942.
  • Blockbuster listing for Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas.
  • Inks, Major James M. Eight Bailed Out. NY: Norton, 1954.
  • Felman, U.S. Air Force Major Richard. Mihailovich and I. Tucson, AZ: Self published by author, copyright, 1964. Serbian Democratic Forum, October, 1972.
  • Freeman, Gregory A. The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All For the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II. NAL, 2007.
  • Roberts, Walter, Tito, Mihailovic and the Allies. Duke University Press, 1987.
  • "The Chetniks Of Yugoslavia." The War Illustrated, Volume 6, #146, January 22, 1943.
  • Deroc, Milan. British Special Operations Explored: Yugoslavia in Turmoil, 1941–1943, and the British Response. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs/New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
  • Ford, Kirk. OSS and the Yugoslav Resistance, 1943-1945. Texas A & M University Press, 1992.
  • Low, Robert. "Hitler's No.1 Headache: The Story of Draja Mihailovitch - Fighter for Freedom." Liberty magazine cover, April 25, 1942, page 18.
  • "Mihailovich: Yugoslavia's Unconquered. He watches from his mountain walls. (World Battlefronts)." Time magazine cover by Vuk Vuchinich (1901–1974), Monday, May 25, 1942, Vol. XXXIX, No. 21.
  • Boxoffice, May 30, 1942, page 16.
  • "The Eagle of Yugoslavia.", Time magazine, Monday, May 25, 1942.
  • Sindbaek, Tea. (2009). "The Fall and Rise of a National Hero: Interpretations of Draza Mihailovic and the Chetniks in Yugoslavia and Serbia Since 1945." Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 17, 1, 47-59.
  • Ove, Torsten. "93-year-old's WWII feats are hidden no longer." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sunday, November 23, 2008.
  • Kurapovna, Marcia. Shadows on the Mountain: The Allies, the Resistance, and the Rivalries that Doomed World War II Yugoslavia. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2009.
  • Pavelic, Boris, and Bojana Oprjan-Ilic. "USA Nevertheless Decorates Chetnik Leader Draza Mihailovic." Novi List, Rijeka, Croatia, May 10, 2005.
  • "Chicago Mayor in PA For 'Chetniks' Debut". Boxoffice, April 3, 1943, p. 52.

External links

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