Passport to Destiny
Passport to Destiny
NR | 31 January 1944 (USA)
Passport to Destiny Trailers

A British war widow travels to Berlin to assassinate Hitler.

Reviews
Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined
Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
Richard Chatten I would have love to have known what Dr.Goebbels would have made of this incredible piece of wartime propaganda about a patriotic cockney cleaning lady from Camberwell who in a twist similar to 'DOA' is emboldened by the possession of a Magic Eye formerly in the possession of her late husband which she believes makes her indestructible, and thus sets off for Berlin to assassinate Hitler (where everyone conveniently speaks in English and she avoids exposure by passing herself off as a deaf mute).As usual, Hollywood has strange ideas about the way the Nazi hierarchy functioned; and this version would have us believe that Himmler's office was located directly opposite Hitler's in the Chancellery, with Goebbels' cosily adjacent. William Joyce - as portrayed by the ever urbane Gavin Muir - according to this account has the run of the place, but seems to have little time for his Nazi minders nor they for him.It's all complete nonsense, done on a shoestring; but it lifts the spirits to see the gorgeous Elsa Lanchester for her only time in Hollywood cast in the lead (she had starred in a few short silent comedies back in blighty fifteen years earlier) and she rises to the occasion with a gusto that amply makes up for the general shabbiness of the rest of the production.
Leonard Thomason The majority of reviews written about Passport to Destiny {formerly Dangerous Journey}(1944) are merciless, criticizing the very entertaining tongue-in-cheek qualities it has in common with the great motion pictures All Through the Night (1941), Desperate Journey (1942) and To Be Or Not To Be (1942).Both Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan used double talk gibberish as a means of escape from Nazis, while Jack Benny masqueraded as Nazi Colonel 'Concentration Camp Ehrhardt' during the fall of Poland. Why is it so much to ask us to believe the exploits of a cockney charlady scrubbing her way across war torn Europe to the Reich Chancellery! If you want to criticize the credibility about war dramas, just take a good look at Man Hunt (1941), Escape (1940) and Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942), where you'll get to see Walter Pidgeon a big game hunter armed with a rifle within shooting distance of Adolph Hitler's residence in the German Alps, while you'll find Robert Taylor, Ginger Rogers and Cary Grant waltzing in and out of concentration camps like they were simply the county lockup.Only a few films routinely circulate featuring the multi-talented Elsa Lanchester: Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Lassie Come Home (1943), Bishop's Wife (1947), Big Clock (1948), Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Mary Poppins (1964). Passport to Destiny needs to be released on DVD!
blanche-2 Preposterous but fun film starring Elsa Lanchester as a British cleaning woman whose late husband (a photo of Charles Laughton) was saved from crocodiles by a glass eye he carried.She believes this eye to have magic powers. She believes it will protect her against all eventualities, so she decides to go to Germany and kill Hitler.I had a feeling I'd seen this film, and when I heard Lanchester's name in the film, Mrs. Muggins, I knew I had. I named one of my cats Muggins.Pretending to be deaf and dumb, Mrs. M gets a job at Hitler's headquarters, though he's out of town at the time. She does, however, manage to pass to an agent information about the whereabouts of his girlfriend. What she doesn't realize is that the Nazis have actually let the woman leave prison and have followed her and the agent, and know of Mrs. Muggins' involvement. Though Lanchester was 42 at the time of this film, she doesn't look it and is quite pretty. She gives a lively performance and is very funny, though the humor comes out of the seriousness of her character and her belief in this magic piece. Seeing her order a Nazi to get her coat was too much, as was her rehearsal for murder in Hitler's office.The rest of the cast is good, and despite the fact that it was done on a set, you really do think you're in London and Berlin somehow.Short, and Lanchester is always a pleasure.
wes-connors During World War II, London widow Elsa Lanchester (as Ella Muggins) reminisces about her deceased husband Albert. A notorious liar, he claimed to have "magic eye" which protected him from harm. Sadly, Albert wasn't carrying the glassy object when he expired. Locating the magic eye in an attic, Ms. Lanchester carries it safely through a German air raid. Convinced she now possesses a charmed life, Lanchester wisely decides to assassinate Adolf Hitler. She stows away on a ship and makes her way to Germany...In Berlin, Lanchester looks up Hitler in the local phone book. She poses as a deaf mute cleaning woman attending to Nazi officials. These scenes are amusing. In a subplot, resistance officer Gordon Oliver (as Franz von Weber) seeks to rescue his sweetheart Lenore Aubert (as Greta Neuman) from a Gestapo prison. Reliably funny Fritz Feld and effectively villainous Lionel Royce have the best supporting material. The photograph of "Albert" is, as you might suspect, Lanchester's real-life spouse Charles Laughton.***** Passport to Destiny (1/31/44) Ray McCarey ~ Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver, Fritz Feld, Lionel Royce