Tunnel, Der

France / Germany • 1933 • 81m •

• Directed by: Curtis Bernhardt. • Starring: Paul Hartmann, Attila Hörbiger, Olly von Flint, Otto Wernicke, Gustaf Gründgens, Max Weydner, Elga Brink, Richard Ryen, Georg Henrich, Max Schreck, Magda Lena, Will Dohm, Ferdinand Marian. • Music by: Walter Gronostay.

An engineer is hired to plan and oversee the construction of a undersea tunnel between Europe and the US. However, certain interests don't want to see the tunnel built and use every means at their disposal, including sabotage and murder, to stop its construction.

Review:

The Tunnel centers around the character of Mac Allen, a tunnel engineer, who is charged with building a transatlantic tunnel. It's a very strange film to watch so many decades after it's release. At it's release in 1934 it was a science fiction film that takes place at least six years after filming, which would make it a near-future science fiction film. I can see the elements they used that would be science fiction to people of the 1930s, but to anybody not from that time period it looks as through the movie was filmed in a slightly alternate version of the late 1940s, discounting things like video communication.

The structure of the film is almost in the form of a biography of the main character and those connected to him while he's working on the project. This is essentially a drama set in a science fiction setting. The largest fault in the film that I perceived is that it lacks an overarching story, there is not a single conflict that remains in the forefront of the film for it's entire run, it's a series of conflicts strung together. It's the sort of film where I reached the middle and it still hadn't set up a plot with a conspicuous conflict or antagonist and a goal for the protagonist to accomplish.

I suppose it could be said that "The Tunnel" which is the namesake of the film is supposed to take on the role of the plot and the antagonist of the film as it's a task undertaken by the protagonist, Mac Allen. But that story is told in just the synapse of the film. If this is the case then why do we spend the majority of the screen time dealing with the biography of Mac Allen and characters that are apparently superfluous to the main conflict that is "The Tunnel"

All in all not a terrible film, well acted but falls into melodrama in some places, high production value. One of the main reasons to see this film now is the strange and subdued science fiction present in the film which would be more interesting if the film was more science fiction and less drama.

Review by Germanswisscheese . from the Internet Movie Database.

Release Anniversaries

Movie Database

Movies By Year: