Now this is a movie that I got to see thanks to Laura from Scandal Coactive. This was part of the Eurocine Collection: Volume 1 that I got as a screener. I knew coming into this movie here that it was directed by Jess Franco. What surprised me was seeing that it starred Christopher Lee, who I'm a big fan of, as well as Luke Skywalker - Mark Hamill. It wasn't until settling in that I realized it also featured Charlie Sheen and Emilio's brother, Ramon Estevez. Also, I knew this featured Nazis as well.
Synopsis: in World War II Germany, two young men, one of which is an ardent Nazi and the other a secret anti-Nazi, are in love with the same woman. She is the daughter of a wealthy banker. The two join the Army and the young woman becomes a nightclub singer. Eventually she joins the Army to entertain the troops, but circumstances soon result in her entire world being changed.
That is a good synopsis of what we get here. Where I'll add is fleshing out who the characters are. We start this at a party. Lillian Strauss (Alexandra Ehrlich) is the daughter who is dancing with Karl Holbach (Estevez). He is a composer and in love with her. He is also the anti-Nazi. We see Peter Froehlich (Hamill) enter the party, who is in love with Lillian. At the time of this party, Germany has invaded Poland. Peter is in the military and home on leave. Walter (Lee) who is the wealthy banker and father to Lillian comes home. His daughter and Karl go off so he can play her a song that he wrote for her. They're interrupted though.
We see through different conversations that Karl is against the war. He gets drafted though. Lillian tries to get her father from letting him go, but he doesn't care for the young man. He also knows that his daughter gets infatuated regularly. Karl goes off to the front in Africa. He writes to Lillian regularly, but she doesn't get his letters. She believes that he isn't writing to her.
Lillian wants to do her part in the war effort. She sings to soldiers who are injured. This leads to her going to a nightclub where she becomes popular. This upsets her father because she is dressed provocatively. This leads to a series of events where Lillian has interactions with her suitors, her father and even her commanding officer, Anton (Daniel Grimm), where we see how war changes not only Germany, but all those involved as well.
That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. What is interesting here was that I learned from reading trivia that this movie was rushed into production. It sounds like an earlier movie, Countdown to Esmeralda Bay, was successful so they tried to capitalize here. This film also doomed the relationship between Eurocine and Franco, as he left it during post-production. Now I haven't seen Esmeralda Bay yet. It is part of this set. What I'll say was that I wasn't expecting the type of movie we get here.
This is an interesting character study of our leads. The problem that I run into is that I think the story should be condensed slightly, because this follows Walter, Karl, Peter and Lillian, but we don't afford all of them enough time to fully flesh things out. This causes characters to be left for long stretches and it bogs the pacing down a bit too much for me. That's not to say this is bad. I was quite intrigued with the stories that are explored here.
With that out of the way, this also has filler from real documentary footage from World War II. We are seeing Adolf Hitler speeches as well as soldiers marching in. The closer we get to the end of the war; we also see the effects it had on Germany. This is even showing that lies are being told to the general German people so they thought they were winning, when in fact, things were falling apart. This is seen through Walter. He's too old to serve, but I also get the idea that he didn't in World War I. He's rich. I bet he avoided it through his influence. He dislikes Karl, thinking that his daughter should be with someone who has money and influence like he does. We see though with how hard he is that he is losing his daughter as this stories progress. Lee does a good job here. He is a professional as well. My problem with this character stems from the end as it doesn't fit the redemption story he is getting as this concludes.
I want to then look at the suitors. We have Peter who is already a soldier and Karl gets drafted. Both end up in similar positions, in that they're leading others. I get the idea for the latter that his time serving has deprogrammed him as a human. He also still doesn't believe in the Nazi cause, but cares about those that he serves with. That is something I can appreciate. Both seem to also experience the idea that life is too short and we shouldn't take for granted what we have. If anything, here, I thought Hamill was underutilized. Estevez was good. I like having this love triangle with Lillian, but I'm not sure if it works out as well as they'd like.
That will then take me to Lillian. Ehrlich does great here as being young and naïve in the beginning. She is a Nazi, but that's due to upbringing. What is interesting here though is that we see how the war changes her. She wants to do her part which in the beginning is singing to boost morale. Singing to the wounded is depressing and shifting to the cabaret makes her a star. When she joins the military, her train is attacked. This causes her to see how difficult life is. She grew up rich so this is the first time. She makes hard decisions that lead to mor growth. I do like that we see she has to choose between Peter and Karl. She also meets Dimitri (Carlos Quiroga) who she grows fond of. There is also her need to make up for the things she did to upset her father. This story arch falls short though with the ending.
What I'll say then is that this is well-made. I thought the cinematography was good in capturing where this is set. It feels like our characters our in different places like the front in Northern Africa or the eastern one in Russia. It feels hot or cold, depending. Some of this looks cheaper, but I'm also not going to hold it against this. I did like the documentary footage edited in. It does feel like a filler, but I think this is more of Franco conveying the story of what was happening surrounding these events so I get it. It just feels to me that we're packing in too much story and it causes it to bog down. I think things should be trimmed and others fleshed out more to work better overall.
I did want to end by saying that this might be one of the best technically made Franco films that I've seen. I was invested to see where this would take us. I didn't even say that the action/war elements were good. I'm just not sure if this movie knew fully what it wanted to do. This is a solid film if you want a period piece drama with a bit of action/war mixed in. An interesting change of pace from Franco, especially if you're out to see his filmography.
My Rating: 6 out of 10.
