planktonrules

The film begins with a helpful prologue which explains the political situation in post-war Vienna. It seems like Berlin, the city was divided into four zones and each of the four Allied powers (US, USSR, UK and France) jointly govern. As part of this, a jeep goes on rounds every day with a soldier from each nation to deal with problems as they arise with the locals.

One thing the film did NOT explain is that during WWII, millions of Axis soldiers were taken prisoner. Many of them remained in the USSR long after the war and quite a few were simply never heard from again. Now, considering the death toll in the USSR during the war, I could understand them not releasing many of the soldiers...but this important part of post-war Austria isn't mentioned...as if the viewer knows about this. As a retired history teacher, I assume that most do not know about this today.

This film begins with one of the patrols coming upon a woman who has been accosted by two men. The Russian soldier tells the men to go...and the American soldier is confused why the Russian instantly sided with the men...and he soon creates a bit of an incident. After all, the four soldiers are supposed to cooperate. Later, this same woman comes into the American soldier's life. It seems her husband is among the many soldiers still in the USSR...and there's word he may have escaped and is making his way back home to Vienna.

Overall, this is an interesting curio, though not a great film. It has a lot of slow portions and although it's Ralph Meeker's film debut, I can't imagine most folks wanting to see this unless they are interested in the Cold War. It's just duller than you'd expect it to be considering the subject matter.

"Women Who Wait" is an episode of "Lux Video Theatre"...a half hour anthology series from the 1950s.

This episode finds two men working for an air service and one of them is carrying on with the other man's wife! Well, the men are on a flight when the plane develops engine trouble...and there's only one parachute. Which one of them used it is unknown to the women as they await news of who survived and who didn't...and most of the episode is about the women as they wait.

I guess many viewers just accepted it, but why would a cargo plane only have one parachute when there is a pilot and co-pilot? To me, this didn't make a lot of sense and took me out of the story. But is it any good otherwise? Well, the acting is very good and it's worth watching...even if it is an odd situation.

When the story begins, Mike is a hobo riding the rails in a boxcar. When he's chased away, he soon wanders upon a car pulled off the side of the road in the desert. Inside is a body and Mike takes the clothes and wallet. After all, he's got nothing and the corpse doesn't need it! However, it turns out the dead man was the guy coming to be the new chief of police in a small but gangster-ridden town...and folks think Mike is the new Chief! What happens next? See the film.

The basic story is good...though it gets weird once folks realize who Mike really is! However, the acting is often poor. It's not the fault of the lead, Gerald Mohr, as he was an experienced actor at the time. But his supporting cast clearly is made up of too many non-actors who cannot act. In particular, some of the gangsters and the local officials can barely deliver their lines! It's one of the few cases where a remake would have been welcome...one with more professional actors (apart from Mohr and a few others). Still, despite everything, the film is worth seeing...particularly if you like crime pictures.