It all starts in Amsterdam, in fact, not far from the Frank House. Though it is a slow-moving film, the pace only helps suggest the parallel between a Holocaust survivor's flight to Palestine and the Biblical exodus to the Promised Land. What's more, the slow pace allows generous, revelatory location shoots in London, Tangiers, the open Mediterranean, and for half the film, when Leo McKern is at the helm of a barge, the Netherlands.
Dolores Hart brings a rare combination of peachy youth and steely determination to the eponymous role Lisa, the Jewish survivor. And Stephen Boyd proves himself a capable actor at last as the alternate eponym, The Inspector. Many other roles are so brief that they're virtual cameos-- but played by superb British character actors who keep the action lively and entertaining. Particularly wonderful: Hugh Griffith, who seems to have given up bathing entirely for his role as a smuggler beset by bats in his Moroccan apartment.
There are time-line problems. The film is set some time between October 1945 and summer 1946, during the Nuremberg trials, which are referred to. But the most powerful scenes are Auschwitz flashbacks, and at one point, Lisa describes the liberation. As she stumbles past barbed wire, she sees a tank with a Star of David painted on it: "The only Israeli tank in the Allied Army—and I saw it!" She then adds, "Sometimes I don't believe it myself" — a wise bit of dialog because Lisa's memory is surely false. Auschwitz was liberated in January, 1945, but by Soviet troops, while the Jewish Brigade (which did indeed fight under the Zionist symbol) was part of the British Army. Furthermore, Israel wasn't a nation until 1948, and the word "Israeli" wasn't in use before then.
But that is a mere quibble. An even more powerful flashback— which is both believable and almost unbearable-- takes us to the Auschwitz clinics where, as Lisa says, "They used us for anatomy lessons, like cadavers"-- a statement which is all too historically accurate.
It's not on DVD yet; watch for it on Fox Movie Channel; that's where I found it.
Dolores Hart brings a rare combination of peachy youth and steely determination to the eponymous role Lisa, the Jewish survivor. And Stephen Boyd proves himself a capable actor at last as the alternate eponym, The Inspector. Many other roles are so brief that they're virtual cameos-- but played by superb British character actors who keep the action lively and entertaining. Particularly wonderful: Hugh Griffith, who seems to have given up bathing entirely for his role as a smuggler beset by bats in his Moroccan apartment.
There are time-line problems. The film is set some time between October 1945 and summer 1946, during the Nuremberg trials, which are referred to. But the most powerful scenes are Auschwitz flashbacks, and at one point, Lisa describes the liberation. As she stumbles past barbed wire, she sees a tank with a Star of David painted on it: "The only Israeli tank in the Allied Army—and I saw it!" She then adds, "Sometimes I don't believe it myself" — a wise bit of dialog because Lisa's memory is surely false. Auschwitz was liberated in January, 1945, but by Soviet troops, while the Jewish Brigade (which did indeed fight under the Zionist symbol) was part of the British Army. Furthermore, Israel wasn't a nation until 1948, and the word "Israeli" wasn't in use before then.
But that is a mere quibble. An even more powerful flashback— which is both believable and almost unbearable-- takes us to the Auschwitz clinics where, as Lisa says, "They used us for anatomy lessons, like cadavers"-- a statement which is all too historically accurate.
It's not on DVD yet; watch for it on Fox Movie Channel; that's where I found it.