Passport to Destiny
| Passport to Destiny | |
|---|---|
 Original film poster |
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| Directed by | Ray McCarey |
| Produced by | Herman Schlom |
| Written by | Muriel Roy Bolton Val Burton |
| Starring | Elsa Lanchester Lenore Aubert Fritz Feld |
| Music by | Roy Webb |
| Cinematography | Jack Mackenzie |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
| Release date(s) | January 31, 1944 |
| Running time | 65 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Passport to Destiny (1944) is a RKO Radio Pictures comedy adventure fantasy war film. It stars Elsa Lanchester in her only leading role as an English cleaning woman who, believing herself invulnerable by being protected by a magic eye amulet, single handedly travels to Nazi Germany to personally assassinate Adolf Hitler.
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[edit] Plot
Set during the London Blitz, Ella Muggins (Lanchester) is a Camberwell cleaning woman who is the widow of a Regimental Sergeant Major (a photo of Charles Laughton, Lanchester's real-life husband). One day she relates to her friends a story about a "magic eye" charm that her husband obtained during his Army service in India that protected him from all harm. Whilst cleaning her attic, she goes through her husband's effects and finds the charm that she absent mindedly puts in the pocket of her skirt.
During an air raid she is caught in the middle of the street with a delay-action bomb. She gets conflicting instructions from two air raid wardens, one telling her to run, another telling her to lay down. She does the latter and survives the explosion though she is helped to the shelter in a daze. As she recovers she realises that her husband's charm has protected her. She asks a friend what she would do if she was totally invulnerable. Looking up to the street being bombed, her friend replies that she would go to Germany and "give that Mr. Hitler what for". Ella leaves the shelter impervious to bombs exploding around her as she walks through the streets with her mind intent on her mission.
Boarding a British merchant ship as a stowaway, Ella is discovered by the crew who think having a woman aboard is bad luck. This is proved when a German airplane bombs and sinks the ship. Ella joins the survivors in a lifeboat that lands in France, where all except Ella are captured by the Germans.
In a rapid montage, Ella works her way across France and Germany as a deaf and dumb cleaning woman, though Ella later says her journey took 10 weeks. In a train compartment she overhears Luftwaffe Captain Franz Von Weber (Gordon Oliver) talking with his fiancee's uncle Frederick Walthers (Lloyd Corrigan) who are both members of the anti-Hitler German resistance on their way to Berlin. Von Weber's fiancee Grete (Lenore Aubert) has been arrested by the Gestapo and Von Weber is determined to find her.
Ella's charm gets her employed as a cleaner in the Reich Chancellery where she proves she is deaf by not flinching when an SS man shoots off a pistol behind her. Though she does not meet Hitler, she trips William Joyce, alias Lord Haw-Haw, with a bar of soap to the delight of the Germans who despise traitors. Noticing Ella's brush stamped MADE IN ENGLAND, Von Weber befriends Ella who has overheard where Greta is being held. She lends Von Weber her Magic Eye in return for his Luger P08 pistol to non democratically remove the head of the German government.
Von Weber is able to have Greta released but in reality it is a ploy by the Gestapo to track the two to discover more members of the German Resistance. Ella's charm works again as when they are captured the Royal Air Force bombs the Chancellery. They escape to an airfield where pilot Von Weber steals a fueled bomber to fly to England where they parachute in in the manner of Rudolf Hess.
Feted as a heroine in London, Ella shows the reporter her husband's chest where she found the amulet but discovers an entire box of them that are stamped as souvenirs.
[edit] Production
In August 1943, no less than six Hollywood films about Adolf Hitler or with Hitler as a title (i.e. Hitler's Children, Hitler-Dead or Alive, The Strange Death of Adolph Hitler, The Hitler Gang) were in production.[1] Originally filmed as Dangerous Journey;[2] the title was changed to Passport to Adventure [3] perhaps due to the similarity to Warner's Desperate Journey then to Passport to Destiny. The production was rushed through "before some soldier beats Elsa to Hitler".[1]
Ray McCarey, the brother of Leo McCarey, was signed on a contract to Republic Pictures after the film.[4]
[edit] References
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