Kier and Hayman Face Off in My Neighbor Adolf Over Hitler Suspicion

Two acting powerhouses, Udo Kier and David Hayman, square off in the domestic drama My Neighbor Adolf, directed and co-written by Leon Prudovsky, about a man who becomes convinced his neighbor is Adolf Hitler.

Hayman plays Polsky, a solitary Holocaust survivor living in Colombia in 1960. A real-estate agent, Frau Kaltenbrunner (Olivia Silhavy), tells him that a new next-door neighbor will share the fence and that Polsky’s prized rosebush lies on the other side. The neighbor, Mr. Herzog, is short and wiry with an oversize gray beard; Polsky fixates on Herzog’s fierce, haunting blue eyes, which the review says "reach just up to the mail slot" in the fence.

The film joins a long line of fictions imagining Hitler in South America, from the 1968 exploitation movie They Saved Hitler’s Brain to George Steiner’s 1981 novella The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. The reviewer writes that My Neighbor Adolf "reaches no such depths or heights": although the leads are committed, the movie gives them little to do beyond exchanging verbal invective and, at one point, dog feces after Herzog’s German shepherd fouls Polsky’s yard.

The reviewer calls the film a possible squandered opportunity while asking what greater purpose it might serve. My Neighbor Adolf runs 1 hour 36 minutes, is not rated and is in theaters.

Key Topics

Culture, My Neighbor Adolf, Udo Kier, David Hayman, Leon Prudovsky, Colombia