Verboten!

source: Verboten!

Verboten!

Poor acting, shoe string budget, terrible subject - Werwolf were of little significance in post war germany. Action scenes not really credible. Sole interesting line was the forbidden romance, and even that was poisoned. Not the best Fuller movie.

an old movie. not exactly for time passing from its birth but for the themes who are always fresh, for the sets, for the measure of story who impress again and again. a war film and more that. because important remains the way to translate in image, with grace, delicacy and courage a dark side of reality. the photographs, the wallpapers, the dialogs, the scenes from Nuenberg trial, the story story itself are tools for a clear and objective picture of period. and that fact remain great , more important, in fact, than the artistic virtues. the equilibrium - that is the essential thing who defines Verboten ! and who gives to its poetic moments more force.

Begins with the ominous opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony followed by bits of Wagner. The early parts and the middle are commendable. Fuller loses grip on the script towards the end with documentary footage of the Nuremberg trials inserted with lack of credibility. As in all Fuller films, the director uses a little known actress and gets her to perform with gusto as no other director could. Here it is Susan Cummings who does her job creditably. The concept of the family being built by the soldier is also there in the background. Early in the film, Fuller uses a stunning close-up of the eyes and eyebrows of actor James Best playing the wounded American soldier. As the film progresses, that kind of cinematography is never repeated. Wonder why.

Only two directors could get away with Beethoven's Fifth coming in under the Columbia Pictures logo--Jean-Luc Godard and Sam Fuller. This movie, a B-minus take on JUDGMENT AT NUREMBURG, may rank as the nuttiest of all movies about the National Socialist Party; Fuller's admixture of fetishizing of and loathing for the Nazis may make you feel cuckoo birds are flying out of your ears.

James Best plays the last soldier left in a German village raided by Allied Forces during World War II. He is wounded and nursed to health by a native (Susan Cummings) whose brother is still loyal to a local Nazi group. The couple falls in love and wants to get married, but it is forbidden by Best's commanding officer. Including some gritty footage of Nazi death camps and a daring rescue by Best of his girlfriend's brother from a burning train, this is one of Samuel Fuller's most underrated films. It was produced after RKO Radio Pictures had closed in 1956, sold to Desi Arnaz and General Tire and Rubber Company. There's an unforgettable opening scene, a shootout to the tune of Bethoven's 5th Symphony.

I enjoyed this for a couple of reasons. The emotional tangle was at times confusing and imperfectly resolved, but the blend of newsreel footage with the film's narrative was often compelling. The other element that I appreciated was the depiction of the Werewolves, the fanatical Nazis who continued the fight after the formal surrender. I don't know of another film that deals with them. They assassinated Burgomaster Oppenhoff of Aachen on Palm Sunday, 1945, for example, and did create problems for the occupation. The film, then, challenges the sanitized version of victory and occupation with some gritty realities. The "human issues" are presented not so much through the characters here, but through the historical reality that was gripping those who had survived Hitler -- both conquered and victors.

One of Fuller's (a combat veteran himself) early works of average quality, but accurately hits on the many conflicting aspects of life in postwar Germany. The main character starts the movie in Apr'45 as a Sgt with C Co, 157th Inf, 45th Div, which really did end the war in Munich as in the movie. (Same unit in the previous month had fought heavily in Aschaffenburg and then liberated part of the Dachau facility). To the uninformed the movie may seem confusing by flip flopping between showing the good & bad of the german people. But anyone who has been there or at least well read on it would know that most of what is portrayed in the movie are things that really did happen in 45-47 Germany. The only inaccuracy I noticed was minor: while on a boat cruise of the Rhine passing the remains of the Remagen bridge he comments he crossed there. But his unit really crossed well south of there - north of Worms Germany.