A student in Nazi Germany, Paul Graffen, is lectured at school about the glories of Nazism, then taken to the Dachau concentration camp and commanded to kill some prisoners. Horrified, he manages to flee to America and enters a high school there, where new conflicts arise with fellow students. Ultimately he must decide whether to publicly denounce Nazi Germany, which would endanger his family still living there, or speak his conscience.
The film was criticized across the board as blatant, simplistic, preachy propaganda, especially since it is set in pre-Pearl Harbor days but was released in 1944, when a debate over Nazis made as much sense as a debate over whether the earth is round. The film was likely made as a way to capitalize on the success of 1943's Hitler's Children, produced by RKO; an even better film with similar subject material had been made in 1940, MGM's The Mortal Storm. Of They Live in Fear, Variety said: "A frantic potboiler seems to go on the theory that Americans should pay theatre admissions to find out our way of life is better than the Nazi formula for living. It's a waste of critical raw stock that could have well been used producing film entertainment."
The Hollywood Reporter called the picture "inept.... The producers...have gone out of their way to cram every possible line and sequence that could be labeled patriotic preaching into their show... It has resulted in a sad example of what can happen when the powerful weapon of propaganda is placed in hands incapable of wielding it wisely. Josef Berne's direction is slow and lacking in anything that couldn't have been accomplished with a bull whip."
Critics, however, had nothing but praise for star Otto Kruger, who plays the high school principal. As Variety put it: "Otto Kruger, as usual, is excellent."
By Jeremy Arnold
