User Reviews

In David Niven's introduction. He mentions that art is in the eye of the beholder. It gives you different meanings.

Two GIs have entered Germany after the D Day landings. In a house they spot a portrait of a woman (Carolyn Jones) and debate what kind of woman she could be.

One views her as a seductive nightclub entertainer, who gets over friendly with a drunken GI. When the military police come calling round at the bar, she hides him in her bedroom.

Is she a woman with a heart of gold? Or just a survivor, a seductress who relieves the GI of his wallet and watch!

The second GI views the picture and sees a cold, calculating woman. An adherence to the fuhrer and vengeful of the invading allies.

The woman works in a chemist, when a friendly GI comes calls in to buy something. She rebuffs his friendly overtures. Until he melts her heart. Only to be landed with a sexual assault charge.

The latter story may seem harsh. Looking at the segment with modern eyes. He does actually forcibly kiss her!

Later an elderly woman appears in the house. Both GIs realise that she was the subject of the painting.

I never found out where this story drove at. I never understood the purpose to tell such a story about GI's in post war Germany snooping around with a local gretchen. I won't say it's unbearable, but only empty, hollow. The unexpected thing is that the German woman is a brunette instead of an Aryan like gal. So, they avoided clichés. The tale of this German girl trying to take bad advantage from occupation troops and of a soldier in particular. The portrait link was maybe a tribute to LAURA, a good try, but I think it missed the point.