Desperate Journey (1942)

The TCM channel aired this adventure a few months ago during a tribute to Raymond Massey. The movie is about a group of bomber pilots stranded in WWII Germany when their plane gets shot down. Among the airmen are Errol Flynn and a comical Ronald Reagan who declares he's "half American, half Jersey City". He has a few other funny lines in the movie such as "How come every time you wake me up I'm on a date with Ann Sheridan?". 

I liked Alan Hale's character, a man in his 50s who dyed his hair to look younger and lied about his age so he could serve. The others tease him about being the oldest in the group and call him "grandpa".

There's a good interrogation scene with Reagan and Massey who plays a Nazi general.

Interestingly, Massey was in another movie with some similarities to this one: The 49th Parallel/The Invaders (1941) in which Nazis are stranded in Canada and Massey plays a good guy.

 Directed by Raoul Walsh. Music by Max Steiner. Also with Arthur Kennedy and Nancy Coleman as a member of the German resistance. Available on DVD.

The Cross of Lorraine (1944)

Jean-Pierre Aumont

In one of my favorite films, 1953's Stalag 17, the POW character Cookie wonders why there aren't more movies about war prisoners.

Stalag 17 was set in 1944, so Cookie and his fellow barracks mates would not yet have known about  1944's The Cross of Lorraine, a great POW film that was released by MGM.

Lorraine is an unusual American production in that it's about French prisoners and stars a great French actor in the lead role, Jean-Pierre Aumont, playing a bilingual solider who reluctantly serves as a translator.

Unlike Stalag 17, there is little comedy relief in  Lorraine.

Based on factual accounts, it is set in a German prison camp not far from the French border. Some of the prisoners are killed by the Germans. Some are tortured.  And some hope to escape the prison and join the French Resistance.

Gene Kelly and Hume Cronyn play French soldiers. Peter Lorre is a German officer.

It is well made film, and a great tribute to the French alliance.

The Cross of Lorraine aired on Turner Classic Movies a few weeks ago, and was recently reviewed here at the blog Silver Screenings.

The Nasty Girl (1990)

Before the opening credits, the director (Michael Verhoeven) explains that the characters are fictional.

The story, however, is inspired by true events, as noted on Ted's blog Just a Cineast earlier this year.

The movie is narrated by the lead character, thirty-something Sonja (Lena Stolze), who speaks directly to the camera as though she's a reporter. Kind of similar to what Michael Caine's character does in Alfie.

The stories she tells are all flashbacks, which makes the film feel something like a docu-drama.

Sonja tells stories about her strict Catholic upbringing in Bavaria and about her mom and dad, both teachers. In one funny scene, Sonja (as narrator), is interrupted by a group of unruly teens and she quips how she was raised very differently. Then we see a scene of her as a young teenager, presumably  in the early 1970s. It's remarkable how she can convincingly play a young teen and an adult. The early flashback sequences are in black-and-white, and then switches to color when she comes of age.

Most of the film is a recollection of her high school years the history assignment that changed her life forever. Sort of like Nancy Drew, she goes on an investigation, interviewing numerous people about her town's Nazi past. In the process, she uncovers some old wounds that the townspeople would rather not deal with. In her determination to uncover the facts, she develops a reputation of being a "nasty" girl. Ultimately her school project turns into a lifelong passion.

Despite the serious subject matter, the film has a lighthearted tone, and lots of quirky comedic elements that some critics - including Roger Ebert -  found confusing. But the style was OK with me. The pacing, the direction, and the editing of this film are done well.

So Ends Our Night (1941)

Glenn Ford and Margaret Sullivan

A two-hour epic tale of survival against Nazi forces in Eastern Europe, set in 1937.

The opening title card explains that in the present political climate, many political dissenters have been attempting to flee Nazi Germany without passports, including the characters played by Frederic March and - in one of his earliest film roles - Glenn Ford.

Erich Von Stroheim has a small but important part as a Nazi officer who interrogates March, a dissenter who refuses to answer any questions about his associates opposed to the regime. Stroheim - standing in a room with a huge Hitler poster...chilling - even asks him if he has a lover back home, and March still refuses to answer. But the truth is that March does - he's married to the love of his life - Frances Dee - whom he hasn't seen since he spent time in a concentration camp.

Francess Dee

March is later released and fends for himself on the streets, gambling to raise money to buy an illegal passport. Ford and some of the other refugees eventually make their way to Paris, where they find construction work. Several interesting sequences follow: one involves a character fulfilling a dream of eating several roasted chickens in one sitting; another takes place in an apartment where everyone struggles to get a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower out of a awkwardly placed window.

During the course of the film, young Glenn Ford meets college student Margaret Sullivan. The two of them go to the movies (I love it when characters in movies go to the movies!), fall in love, and for a time they are separated also, both facing persecution for being Jewish. We're left to wonder if the two pairs of lovers (including Frederic March & Francis Dee) will ever be reunited. I won't give it away, but what happens in the end is emotionally powerful.

The film was released in February 1941, 70 years ago

117 min. • Available to rent via NetFlix. • 1 Oscar nomination: Best Original Music Score

Directed by John Cromwell • Based on the 1939 novel "Flotsam" by Erich Maria Remarque

Underground (1941) Directed by Vincent Sherman

The Nazis try to uncover an underground resistance movement in this 1941 thriller from legendary director Vincent Sherman, who helmed Mr. Skeffington, Old Acquaintance, Nora Prentiss, and The Young Philadelphians.

Released by Warner Brothers shortly before the US entered the war, the film opens on the Berlin city streets, where flags and banners with the Nazi swastika fly high. We see citizens discreetly exchanging information about upcoming - and highly secretive - radio broadcasts that illegally criticize Hitler and his policies and the coming danger ahead.

The programs are announced by a voice of freedom, played by Philip Dorn (Random Harvest and I Remember Mama) This was one of Dorn's first English speaking films. He is great as Eric Franken, the leader of the resistance.

Eric's brother Kurt Franken (Jeffrey Lynn), on the other hand, is a Nazi. In one scene someone asks Kurt what the Nazis were trying to accomplish, and he explains "to restore Germany's place in the world...we were a weak and despised nation before, now everyone respects us. They are afraid of us", much to the chagrin of the rest of his family, including his father, a German veteran of WWI opposed to Nazism. In a very good dinner table scene, reminiscent of MGM's The Mortal Storm, the mother stops a brewing argument by saying, "Please...just for tonight....let's forget about war and politics and everything but our family".

Tension builds as the gestapo moves in on the group and we learn more about two of the women of the resistance - one a beautiful cafe violinist (Kaaren Verne) and the other, a beautiful spy (Mona Maris) who masquerades as an assistant to Nazi commanders. This well-written and directed film has some interesting twists...let me share just one (SPOILER ALERT): the Nazi brother falls for the violinist - who is soon apprehended as an enemy of the state. (This is not giving too much away)



The film is thought provoking, often sad, and not always easy to watch. Several people are beaten and tortured in this film. I was reminded of all the members of the resistance, who risked their lives to spread the truth about the horrors of the Nazis. This film is tribute to them. Highly recommended. 95 minutes. on DVD.

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On May 7, 1945, 65 years ago today, the Nazis quit, as the newspaper headline below shows. Below: Front page of The Rock County Star Herald *Extra* (Luverne, Minnesota) on May 7, 1945: "Nazis Quit...Germany Surrenders to the Allies unconditionally"



The German armies surrendered on May 7, 1945 in Reims, France. The surrender was ratified the next day on May 8, 1945 in Berlin, Germany.

May 8, 1945 was proclaimed "VE Day", or, "Victory in Europe Day" throughout the world. It was the Allies' victory in Europe during WW2.

A week earlier, on April 30, Hitler committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin.

Another review from the blog Just a Cineast here

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This post was submitted to be a part of the Nazis Quit Blogathon (May 2010), hosted by Cinema Steve. The blogathon commemorated the 65th anniversary of Nazi defeat, and featured movie reviews, video clips, artwork and more.

Disney Cartoon Short: Hitler's Children (1943)

Whoah, I stumbled upon this Walt Disney WWII-era short.

The Mortal Storm (1940)

This is a film that came out in 1940 and stars Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan.

It's a movie that I always remember as being one that stands out from many other films of 1940 because it talks about the politics in Germany at the time.

The film shows how a family breaks apart due to their political differences and affiliations.

Robert Stack co-stars as a relative who turns to the Nazi party, to the dismay of his relatives who align with the resistance. Frank Morgan plays a professor and the patriarch of the family.

Jacqueline of Another Old Movie Blog wrote a very good blog entry on this movie here.