This film is perhaps the perfect companion to "Judgement at Nuremberg" and other obscure post World War II films set in Germany. The first quarter is set during the war as American soldier James Best survives with the aide of German sympathizer Susan Cummings who hates the Nazi's and wants to see the American troops destroy them. They have taken over what remains of her bombed out home as a viewing post, and Cummings really risks her life for Best.
After the war ends, Best is shamed by the American troops who arrives for marrying her, meant to feel like a traitor. Cummings discovers that her younger brother Harold Daye (who lost an arm when the Americans bombed their village, thus despising Americans), and decides to take him to the site of the Nuremberg trials where the visuals of Nazi atrocities really disturb him. But with her marriage in jeopardy because of the distrust that has grown, she's still captive to oppression, and the presence of angry German youngsters still working to aide Nazi officers, the war still appears to be on.
This film makes its point under the superb direction of Sam Fuller to show that just because the Germans had lost the war doesn't mean that all of them had stopped fighting in one way or another. This is extremely well done, with the dingy dark photography aiding in showing just how low they were sinking as the war was coming to a close and their efforts to not take responsibility after it was all done.
I found Daye at times to be overwrought and outlandish in his performance as the American hating young German, but he made up for it in the Nuremberg sequence where the atrocities deeply reaches into his soul. Even though it is news reel footage inserted into the film, that doesn't matter because it really makes an impact in that ten minute sequence and set the tone for how Best and Cummings resolved their issues. This goes onto my list of must see forgotten classics, one that I will add to my list of 1959's best films.
After the war ends, Best is shamed by the American troops who arrives for marrying her, meant to feel like a traitor. Cummings discovers that her younger brother Harold Daye (who lost an arm when the Americans bombed their village, thus despising Americans), and decides to take him to the site of the Nuremberg trials where the visuals of Nazi atrocities really disturb him. But with her marriage in jeopardy because of the distrust that has grown, she's still captive to oppression, and the presence of angry German youngsters still working to aide Nazi officers, the war still appears to be on.
This film makes its point under the superb direction of Sam Fuller to show that just because the Germans had lost the war doesn't mean that all of them had stopped fighting in one way or another. This is extremely well done, with the dingy dark photography aiding in showing just how low they were sinking as the war was coming to a close and their efforts to not take responsibility after it was all done.
I found Daye at times to be overwrought and outlandish in his performance as the American hating young German, but he made up for it in the Nuremberg sequence where the atrocities deeply reaches into his soul. Even though it is news reel footage inserted into the film, that doesn't matter because it really makes an impact in that ten minute sequence and set the tone for how Best and Cummings resolved their issues. This goes onto my list of must see forgotten classics, one that I will add to my list of 1959's best films.