- "Will Hitler escape this time?"
Hitler, Dead or Alive is a 1942 war movie.
A businessman has offered a $1 million bounty on the head of Adolf Hitler. A group of gangsters have decided to accept. They join the Canadian Air Force, only to desert the second they get to Germany.
This film contains examples of:
- The Alcatraz: Our heroes just got out of Alcatraz for mob activities the day our story begins.
- Alternate History: The film turns out to be the point of divergence for this, since Hitler is successfully assassinated.
- The Atoner: Meyer is an agent of La Résistance motivated by a desire to atone for saving Hitler's life decades ago as a young doctor.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Steve bullshits his way into a German cop thinking he's a Nazi spy to get an easier ride to Berlin.
- Big Bad: The main target of the film's assassination plot is Adolf Hitler himself.
- Celebrity Casualty: Hitler meets an ironic end when he gets gunned down by an SS officer who doesn't recognize him without his mustache.
- Dangerous Deserter: Averted; the gangsters desert from the Canadian Air Force to carry out a mission that could win the war they were sent into in the first place.
- Distinguishing Mark: Our heroes intend to prove they killed the real Hitler, as opposed to a body double, by shaving his mustache to show a scar on his upper lip.
- The Hero Dies: Though his mission to kill Hitler is successful, Steve Maschick is shot via firing squad by the Nazis.
- Meet the New Boss: Hitler's successor is so similar to him that most laypeople don't even know Hitler died.
- Price on Their Head: Our heroes are out to collect a million dollar bounty on Adolf Hitler.
- Rage Within the Machine: Countess Else von Brandt is the wife of a Gestapo officer who smuggles prisoners out of her husband's camp.
- Revenge: The reason the bounty is in place is that a millionaire wanted revenge on his brother's death at the hands of the Gestapo.
- Would Hurt a Child: The Nazis kill a bunch of kids via firing squad near the end of the film.
