This pulse-pounding documentary from the leftist filmmaker Herbert Kline traces the rise of Hitler up to the very brink of WWII. The commentary, written by James Hilton and read by Fredric March, urges American viewers to abandon neutrality and enter a conflict about to explode.
In researching the work of Herbert Kline, I came across these excellent notes from a 2017 screening at "Cinema Rediscovered" in Bristol, England, which I reproduce here for preservation and to provide much needed information about this rarest of films.
_Rarely seen since its initial 1940 release; Herbert Kline’s timely documentary traces the final months of an uneasy peace in 1939 and records a Europe on the brink of total war._
_Unlike many other documentaries made at the time, Kline’s incredible directing highlights the real people of the cities of London, Danzig and Warsaw and rarely mentions the international leaders involved in the summer of 1939. If anything, this beautifully shot film is about the people whose lives are about to change forever._
_On his first professional assignment as a cameraman, a young Douglas Slocombe found himself accompanying director Kline to the Free City of Danzig and then onto the Polish border. While there, the two men began to realise the Nazis’ had begun their invasion of the country. The pair joined the mass of refugees fleeing the invading forces, filming what they could along the way and capturing some of the most impressive and unique images ever to be filmed of the Second World War._
_Digitally restored by The Museum of Modern Art, New York from the only surviving print of the original full length version, Lights Out in Europe is a forgotten masterpiece of documentary wartime filmmaking and the first adventure for the great cinematographer, Douglas Slocombe._