Themes: Brief Encounters, Star-Crossed Lovers, Military Life
Main Cast: John Gavin, Liselotte Pulver, Keenan Wynn, Don DeFore, Erich Maria Remarque, Thayer David, Jock Mahoney
Release Year: 1958
Country: US
Run Time: 133 minutes
Plot
Douglas Sirk directed this doomed World War II love story, seen from the German side of the war, as filtered through a distinctly late-'50s Hollywood banality. The film is based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the author of the classic World War I anti-war novel All Quiet On the Western Front -- and who makes a cameo appearance in the film as an elderly schoolteacher. The film stars John Gavin as Ernst Graber, a young Nazi soldier home on leave during the height of World War II. While on leave, he falls in love and marries Elizabeth Kruze (Lilo Pulver). With bombs falling all around the young couple, they set up house with a kindly old woman. Then Elizabeth becomes pregnant. But before Ernst can grasp the reality of his becoming a father, he is sent back to the war -- to fight the brutal battle along the Russian front. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Dieter Borsche - Capt. Rahe; Barbara Rutting - Woman Guerrilla; Charles Regnier - Joseph; Dorothea Wieck - Frau Lieser; Kurt Meisel - Heini; Agnes Windeck - Frau Witte; Clancy Cooper - Sauer; Klaus Kinski - Gestapo Lieutenant; Alice Treff - Frau Langer; Alexander Engel - Warden; Dana J. Hutton - Hirschland; Wolf Harnisch - Sgt. Muecke; Karl Ludwig Lindt - Dr. Karl Fresenburg; Lisa Helwig - Frau Kleinert; John van Dreelen - Political Officer
Credit
Alexander Golitzen - Art Director, Alfred Sweeney - Art Director, Bill Thomas - Costume Designer, Joseph E. Kenny - First Assistant Director, Douglas Sirk - Director, Ted Kent - Editor, Miklos Rozsa - Composer (Music Score), Bud Westmore - Makeup, Russell Metty - Cinematographer, Robert Arthur - Producer, Russell A. Gausman - Set Designer, Clifford Stine - Special Effects, Whitney McMahon - Special Effects, Leslie I. Carey - Sound/Sound Designer, Orin Jannings - Screenwriter, Erich Maria Remarque - Book Author
Zwei Genies (1934) • Das Mädchen vom Moorhof (1935) • Der Eingebildete Kranke (1935) • Dreimal Ehe (1935) • April, April! (1935) • Stützen der Gesellschaft (1935) • La Chanson du souvenir (1936) • t was een april (1936) • Schlußakkord Das Hofkonzert (1936) • Das Hofkonzert (1936) • Zu neuen Ufern (1936) • Zu neuen Ufern (1937) • La Habanera (1937) • Accord final (1938) • Boefje (1939)
1940s
Hitler's Madman (1943) • Summer Storm (1944) • A Scandal in Paris (1946) • Lured (1947) • Sleep, My Love (1948) • Shockproof (1949) • Slightly French (1949)
1950s
Mystery Submarine (1950) • The First Legion (1951) • Thunder on the Hill (1951) • The Lady Pays Off (1951) • Week-End with Father (1951) • No Room for the Groom (1952) • Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952) • Meet Me at the Fair (1953) • Take Me to Town (1953) • All I Desire (1953) • Taza, Son of Cochise (1954) • Magnificent Obsession (1954) • Sign of the Pagan (1954) • Captain Lightfoot (1955) • All That Heaven Allows (1955) • There's Always Tomorrow (1956) • Never Say Goodbye (1956) • Written on the Wind (1956) • Battle Hymn (1957) • Interlude (1957) • The Tarnished Angels (1958) • A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958) • Imitation of Life (1959)
1970s
Sprich zu mir wie der Regen (1976) • Silvesternacht - Ein Dialog (1978) • Bourbon Street Blues (1979)
