Category Archives: WWII

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Patton (1970) A Great Actor in an Excellent Biopic

Patton is a fascinating, surprising movie and totally not what I had expected. Especially not after the first ten minutes in which we see George C. Scott perform the so-called Blood and Guts Speech. Quite off-putting, to be honest. As much as I like transparent and open communication, this wasn’t promising. What I sensed at the beginning is exactly what the movie has been reproached of doing, namely not taking an anti-war position. 1970 was not exactly a time in which people were in favour of a movie that seems to glorify warriors. Well, that is not what it’s a l about as I discovered when I watched the rest. No, this is an excellent biopic with an absolutely amazing main actor. A portrait of a character with numerous dazzling facets.

The movie follows Patton’s WWII years, starting in Africa, continuing in Europe, until the moment when he comes to rescue the by now famous 101st Airborne at Bastogne.

Patton is mentioned in many a war movie but we do not see him so often. We know that there was a lot of competition between him and the British General Montgomery and ultimately also between him and Feldmarschall Rommel. Rommel seemed to have had a lot of respect regarding Patton’s skills, whereas Montgomery was too full of himself to register anyone else (what a peacock).

Patton is an epic character, a larger than life figure but what puzzled me most is his belief in reincarnation. This isn’t what I had expected and it was the element of the movie that fascinated me the most. He was convinced to be the reincarnation of an ancient warrior, he even remembered some battle fields from former lives. On the other hand he was a believing Christian. Truly a man of many contradictions or rather complex aspects. He wrote poetry but despised cowardice which led to an unlucky event – the unfair slapping of a shell-shocked soldier – that cost him his position.

Precisely this event surprised me even more than his belief in reincarnation. I’m not saying people should be slapped, no matter what for, but that this led to his removal from command seems very surprising, humiliating and also unfair. I rather assume that Washington didn’t approve of his being to outspoken. Plus he was absolutely not Russian friendly and didn’t make a secret of it.

All in all I think this is truly one of the most spellbinding biopics or character studies I have ever seen. Such a fascinating personality and what a splendid actor. 5/5

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Candlelight in Algeria (1944) A Forgotten British War Time Classic

Candlelight In Algeria is one of the forgotten classics from the Golden Age of British Cinema. Just like Tomorrow We Live or First of the Few.

Candlelight in Algeria is a short, fun movie, mixing facts and fiction. James Mason plays a British spy who is chased by the Germans and helped by a very feisty American girl. They form a very funny duo and flavour this spy story with elements of the screwball comedy. She is an endearing heroine, really, and in stark contrast to the British spy. She never reacts the way he would expect a woman to react. She is courageous and foolhardy at the same time and pretty much living every moment to the fullest. I don’t think she cares too much about politics. She gets involved with Mason’s character because she loves adventures.

The location, Algeria, makes for some interesting decor, the black and white works well but don’t expect a Casablanca like movie. It is totally different. You won’t find heartache, sorrow, betrayal or an alcoholic brooding silently.

The protagonists meet in Algiers, when the agent Alan Thurston (James Mason) hides in the house of friends of Susan Foster (Carla Lehmann). He is looking for a camera which contains photos that will reveal the exact location where the Allies rehearse the invasion of North Africa. Susan is fascinated by Mason and probably also fancies him from the start and spontaneously decides to help him. The unlikely couple will try to get the camera back and in doing so are constantly  hunted by Dr. Muller, an evil Nazi sympathiser. Dangerous and comical moments alternate.

Maybe it isn’t the greatest achievement of British cinema history but it is very likable and I often enjoy the contrasting of British and American characters in movies of the 40s. I found it particularly fascinating as I had just watched Patton before that begins at the very same moment in history which is at the heart of Candlelight in Algeria. This movie is occasionally also mentioned in lists of forgotten noir movies.

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The Gathering Storm (2002) HBO’s Excellent Churchill Biopic

When Gretchen Rubin started to work on her biography on Winston Churchill, she first read extensively everything that was available. Every biographer would do the same, especially when the person he wants to write about is already dead and the possibility for an interview non-existent.

This isn’t really remarkable as such, remarkable is what she came up with after having read so much about Churchill. She realized she couldn’t write the type of biography you would normally write and decided to call her book 4o Ways to Look at Winston Churchill: A Brief Account of  a Long Life instead. In her book she names 40 elements of Churchill’s life and has a look at them. She also shows contradictions in naming Churchill’s positive aspects in one chapter followed by the negative ones in the next. For every character trait one biographer came up with, another one named the exact opposite. If you want to really understand Churchill and the range of his complexity you have to take into account all the contradictions as well. Rubin doesn’t say her approach is a definite one (although she used the same approach again in her biography of Kennedy) but it is certainly clever and thought-provoking.

The Biopic The Gathering Storm goes a completely different way. It shows Churchill just before WWII, during a very difficult period in his life and focuses on his depression and his marriage. We see a very private Churchill, one that not many got to see. I enjoyed The Gathering Storm a lot but I know it isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. The two actors Vanessa Redgrave and Albert Finney are fantastic. The title of the movie is taken from Churchill’s book  on WWII called The Gathering Storm.

If you like great acting, are interested in the private side of one of history’s most important men, enjoy character portraits and biopics and a beautifully filmed movie, then you shouldn’t miss this.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a trailer so I posted part one of the movie here. You will notice that Ridley Scott was one of the executive producers.

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Attack on Leningrad aka Leningrad (2009) Russian/UK Movie on the Siege of Leningrad

There are numerous ways to tell a story. Numerous point of views to choose. Sometimes choices are convincing. Often they are not. Attack on Leningrad belongs to the second category. The choices the film director and his team made to tell this story were absolutely not convincing. I am very disappointed. This is very sad as this movie had incredible potential. Told another way this could have been one of the very great. As it is now it’s just an average movie on a shocking theme. How sad this is, became fully clear to me after I watched the interview with film director Aleksandr Buravsky on the DVD. He had the chance to create something great, why didn’t he do it?

The Siege of Leningrad is one of the unspeakable atrocities that the Germans committed during WWII. Hitler had the idea to starve the people of Leningrad within a few weeks, maximum two months in order to gain superiority on the Eastern Front. The siege lasted 872 days. Leningrad was a big city of almost 5 million people at the time. At least 1.5 million died during the siege. I was interested in this topic since I had read Helen Dunmore’s excellent novel The Siege. It’s a daring book from a master storyteller. I had hoped for an equally good movie (the movie is NOT based on Dunmore’s book).

In 1941 a young ambitious British journalist is flown to Leningrad, together with a whole group of foreign correspondents, to cover a story on Leningrad. While the journalists are there, Leningrad is attacked by the Germans and cut off from the rest of the world. She is believed to be dead and left behind while some of the other journalists manage to escape to Moscow. A young female Russian police officer helps her. Those two extremely different women form a bond that becomes a friendship. The two women fight for their life and the lives of a few others, almost until the end of the siege. The circumstances are horrible. It is extremely cold, people are famished and die in the streets, they cut open animals that are still alive, they eat dead humans, lick glue from paper hangings. It’s all very drastic and well shown. Still the movie didn’t work because of the invention of this English journalist. It’s a tacky, pretty unbelievable and unnecessary story. The movie has Russian and English parts and whenever we see Russian parts it is strong and convincing and as soon as it moves to the English parts it is just sadly arbitrary.

Why invent a story like that when there was such a lot of material at hand? Accounts of eye witnesses, for example. In the interview Buravsky mentions the famous Russian composer Shostakovich who was in Leningrad during the siege where he composed his 7th symphony. Wouldn’t that have been a great story? Or what he said about Stalin… Apparently he could have freed Leningrad much earlier but decided against it. He deliberately let them starve as Leningrad, the former St.Petersburg, the home of the Tsars was the center of the intelligentsia and the arts. In doing so he could get rid of people who were undesirable in his regime… A dictator like Stalin was certainly not fond of intellectuals and artists or other people who were used to thinking for themselves. That would have been a great story as well.

Since it is a Russian/UK co-production I suspect the choices had something to do with funding. Too bad.

Still, for people who have never heard or are not very familiar with the siege of Leningrad this movie is a good opportunity to learn something about it. And it is watchable. The Russian cast is very good, the pictures are very nice but all in all it’s a lost opportunity for something that could have been better than average. 3.5/5

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The Counterfeiters aka Die Fälscher (2007) The True Story of the Biggest Counterfeiting Operation of all Times

Die Fälscher aka The Counterfeiters is one of the most highly acclaimed Austrian/German movies of the last years and got many prizes. It’s a good movie, based on an incredible true story, with great actors and some very thought-provoking elements but…. But what? I am at a loss. Did I not like it? Maybe not but there are many war movies I absolutely don’t like but still think they are great or very good. Why not this one? It does belong to the subcategory of Holocaust/concentration camp movies and as such it is not up to others, maybe that is the reason… I found the story fascinating and the dilemma worthwhile, still….

Solomon “Sally” Sorowitsch, a Russian Jew, lives the good life in Berlin, just before the war. He is the king of the counterfeiters. He has a lot of money that he spends on champagne, women, parties and gambling. The good life ends when Superintendent Friedrich Herzog arrests him. He is sent to the concentration camp Mathausen. Mathausen is a concentration camp just like Auschwitz. Forced-labour, unspeakable conditions, dirt, no food, abuse, mistreatment…When a guard discovers Sally’s talent as an artist, his life changes. He isn’t treated like the others anymore. In exchange for paintings for the Germans he gets privileges. After some time he is transferred to Sachsenhausen where he and a big group of others will live in luxurious barracks. They have been picked by the very same Herzog who arrested Sally. They have all been chosen for particular skills and are ordered to start to forge first the British Pound and then the American Dollar. Sally has no morals, as long as he can save his life and live comfortably he doesn’t care too much how he achieves this goal. But there are others in the group who do not think that way. To forge the currency of the Allies means to help the Nazis. If it wasn’t for a particularly sadistic guard – who knows – maybe Sally’s conscience wouldn’t have been awakened but in the end it is.

When the war is over, Sally knows once more how to make the most out of the situation, and, like before, in the end, being the gambler he is, he loses all.

The movie does ask some interesting questions. Is it justifiable to want to save your own life? Should you sacrifice a few for many others?

Sorowitsch is a fascinating character and his skills are amazing. It is an interesting movie and if I hadn’t felt, that I have to like it, maybe I would have appreciated it more.