Documentary Review Mr. Death

Mr. Death (1999) 

Directed by Errol Morris 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Fred A Leuchter Jr. 

Release Date December 29th, 1999 

Published August 4th, 2003 

I used to be one of those “eye for an eye” types. A guy who was adamantly pro-death penalty. Then last year as I watched the death row in Illinois dismantled by its outgoing Governor, stories began to come out about four innocent men who were nearly put to death by electrocution. I came to the realization that if even one innocent man goes to his death at the hands of the state, then that blood is on all of our hands.

The death penalty is way too flawed a concept to be continued in this supposedly civilized country. Of course, you could never convince Fred A. Leuchter Jr. of that. Leuchter is an engineer who earned the nickname Mr. Death because of his proficiency for repairing antiquated death chambers. Leuchter is the subject of the documentary Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr. by Errol Morris, the man who directed the thrilling documentary Fast Cheap and Out of Control.

Mr. Death was actually supposed to be merely a chapter of Fast Cheap and Out of Control, a simple 30 minute segment on this unassuming little man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of inmates. However, once Morris began to look a little deeper into Fred Leuchter's unusual life, a new subplot emerged. A quirky profile of a death chamber repairman turned into a story about the Holocaust and one small man's desperation to be loved and accepted by anyone, even if it was a group of Neo-Nazis.

Fred Leuchter Jr. grew up in the New Jersey prison system. His father was a guard and young Fred would often join his father at work. Spending his days hanging out with guards and inmates, he learned the tricks of the criminal trade like hot wiring cars. He also had an experience not many teenagers can claim, he was strapped into the electric chair. It was a life changing moment for Leuchter, it began his unusual fascination with the implements of state sponsored death.

The documentary begins as it was likely intended to in its initial conception, a series of interviews with this strange shy little man who built lethal injection machines, and repaired electric chairs, gas chambers and even gallows. As Leuchter explains directly to the camera, he was appalled by the conditions of the electric chairs and set about using his engineering skills to develop a more efficient killing machine. 

In graphic detail, Leuchter recounts the gruesomeness of the old style electric chairs, the way they charred the flesh, set the condemned on fire, and popped their eyes out of their heads. Leuchter claims his inspiration was humanistic. He was interested in making death as comfortable as possible for the condemned, though he doesn't seem very convincing. The sense I got was that he was a guy who found a unique niche for himself and took to it quite readily.

Whatever your opinion of Leuchter and his business, he does at first seem to be a simple pragmatic businessman. He had a wife and family. His business, however macabre it is, was enough to comfortably support his family.

Then a strange thing happened in the life of Fred Leuchter. He was subpoenaed to appear in court in Canada on behalf of a man named Ernst Zundel, a historical revisionist on trial for printing a pamphlet that the Canadian government claimed was a call to violence and hatred. Zundel's revisionist history of World War II included the contention that the Holocaust never happened.

What does this have to do with Fred Leuchter? Zundel hired the expert on death chambers to determine whether the German internment camps actually had gas chambers. On Zundel's dime, Leuchter, his wife and a camera crew traveled to Auschwitz and committed what can only be described as a crime. With his wife as a lookout, Leuchter went into the chamber and began chipping away pieces of the wall and floors. His intent, to take the samples back to the U.S and have them tested for cyanide, the Nazi's poison of choice.

Fred Leuchter's "investigation" however was quite flawed. He did not bother to explain to the American lab that tested his samples what he was looking for. The tests as they were conducted could not have possibly found cyanide. As the scientist who performed the experiment explained, cyanide does not penetrate deeply into the walls; it barely registers below the surface. Because the gas chambers had been exposed to the elements for nearly 40 years, when Leuchter gathered his samples the degradation of the samples rendered the experiment useless.

These massive screw-ups did not stop Leuchter from testifying that he did not find any evidence of cyanide and it was his opinion that Auschwitz did not have a gas chamber. Despite Leuchter's "expert" testimony, Zundel was convicted. Because of his findings, called The Leuchter Report, Fred became popular amongst neo-Nazi groups who adopted him as a spokesman. Leuchter basked in the attention, the standing ovations of glad handing Nazi's who called him a genius.

When Leuchter returned to his regular life, he found that the States that had contracted with him to fix their death chambers were no longer in need of his services. His report that made him so many new friends was not surprisingly off putting to politicians who don't want to be in business with a man who calls Nazi's friends. Of course, Leuchter believes it's a Jewish conspiracy, but he says he is not anti-Semitic.

Maybe he's not truly anti-Semitic, in the documentary he does seem to come off as a little naive and slow. It is as if he believes he just did a job and why should that bother anyone? He can't imagine why anyone would find his views on the Holocaust offensive.

Errol Morris appraises his subject from a far. Unlike some filmmakers, Morris is content to remain completely off camera. He doesn't even contribute a narration, allowing his subject to narrate with his answers to off-screen questions. Morris has an interesting visual style, very crisp photography mixed with archival footage and the amateur footage that Leuchter compiled on his trip to Auschwitz.

There is nothing entertaining about Mr. Death but it is oddly fascinating. Watching this strange little man as he struggles to understand why he's not taken seriously, why he can no longer find a job, and why his wife left him. Even before his trip to Germany, he struggles to understand why people look at him funny, why people find his job so creepy and weird. He's not self-conscious, just confused.