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Skeleton on Horseback Reviews

1940
1 hr 20 mins
Drama
NR

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This morbidly titled Czechoslovakian film was based on The White Diamond, a play by Karel Capek. Set in a mythical country, the story concerns a dedicated doctor (Hugo Haas) who discovers a cure for a dread disease that has decimated a goodly portion of the populace. The doctor refuses to reveal the secret of his miracle serum unless the country's despotic dictator promises to cease his warlike behavior and press for peace. Alas, the dictator refuses to listen, the country goes to war, and the doctor and his cure are lost to the Ages. Obviously designed as an allegorical statement against Fascism, Skeleton on Horseback was filmed in 1937, just before the German takeover of Czechoslovakia. Realizing that the film was tantamount to his own death warrant, star/director Hugo Haas fled to the United States, where his career continued unabated (albeit on a less lofty level).

This allegory on fascism features Haas as a doctor who finds a cure for a leprous disease that represents this political theory. Both young and old are subject to the new fascist government, and Haas will provide his cure only if the ruling dictator will promise peace. However, the country goes off to war and is ultimately defeated. Haas is killed by a mob of angry citizens, and the dictator succumbs to the disease. The doctor's assistant then saves humankind from the ravages of the ailment. The story packs a good deal of dramatic power. The more intimate moments are well handled with skill and care. The crowd sequences suffer from some poor photography. SKELETON ON HORSEBACK was reportedly the last Czechoslovakian film made before the Nazi invasion. Its anti-fascist stance caused the banning of the film in much of Europe; it reached American screens only after being smuggled out of Czechoslovakia by producer-director-screenwriter Haas and being seen by American cinema mogul Carl Laemmle in Paris. Laemmle founder of Universal Studios--which he lost in 1935 due to financial difficulties during the Great Depression--initially distributed the film through an independent company he set up himself. He died in 1939, before the film's U.S. release. Haas came to the U.S. where he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in a succession of brooding, musty melodramas dealing with a crude old man's--Haas'--relationship with a buxom young blonde woman, played by Cleo Moore. Photographer Heller also fled his native land just after the Nazi invasion; he went to England, where he worked on such successes as THE LADYKILLERS (1955) and THE IPCRESS FILE (1965). Prolific Czech writer Capek--best known for his futuristic play "R.U.R." in which the word "robot" was first coined--strongly objected to the film's ending, which deviated from that of his play. Capek died in 1938; this was a film adaptation of his last play. Famed author Fannie Hurst was sufficiently impressed by the picture to volunteer to edit it and write the subtitles. (In Czechoslavakian; English subtitles.)