Corresponsal en Berlín

We caught this movie on TCM. At first it struck us as having highly improbable scenes for Nazi Germany. But then, it struck us as being like the 1960s sitcom, "Hogan's Heroes". I can't help wondering if this movie inspired the makers of "Hogan's Heroes"?

This 1942 film by 20th Century Fox, was shown the other night. It is pure propaganda, as many others of the period, when Hollywood was seen as the right medium to advance the cause for the war. Eugene Forde directed this mildly engrossing movie that although flawed has some surprising good moments.

Best of all is Bill Roberts, our man in Berlin, who transmits his radio broadcast with his own slant, telling what was really happening in spite of the censure he must go through. There is intrigue all over the place, but our hero is wiser than the people that are trying to get him. The plot involves some spying from a woman that Bill doesn't suspect is the daughter of his contact in Berlin, who sees the light when she learns her father has been imprisoned because of his illegal activities.

Dana Andrews is good as Bill Roberts, the American correspondent in Berlin. Virginia Gilmore is his love interest. Martin Koleck is perfect as Capt. von Rau, and Mona Maris does a good job portraying the bad Nazi girl.

The film is entertaining and while it doesn't break new ground, will keep the viewer entertained because of the good direction from Mr. Forde.

This was actually entertaining. The acting was quite good, and there was suspense and humor. The pace was just right -- not too frenetic, but it moved right along. The low budget was betrayed mostly by the sets. The concentration camp was obviously left over from a Western cowboy movie set. Log cabin watch towers? Also, the entrance to the camp looked like something from "F Troop." When a plane takes off from a supposed Nazi airfield, the buildings around the field look suspiciously like the sound stages on movie lots.

I also noticed the Hans Gruber name -- it was actually the name of the stamp shop being used by the hero and the heroine's father to pass secret information.

I actually liked that the Nazi colonel's secretary (who was secretly in love him) was not the stereotype that I expected, and her role was not what I expected either.

... with Dana Andrews in an early role, a couple of years before Laura.

American correspondent Bill Roberts (Dana Andrews) broadcasts live from Berlin in late 1941 before Pearl Harbor. You'd wonder WHY he does this since he has about three or four Germans huddled around him every time he broadcasts to make sure he says only positive happy sappy things about Germany. And then you find out why he doesn't just quit and go home. He has been discovering German secrets and inserting those secrets in code inside of his broadcasts. In America these secrets are translated and sent on to our allies in Europe.

The Germans know he is doing this, and they don't just kick him out of the country because they want to know his source. They've tried numerous detectives and PI's but Bill has spotted them all. So a colonel in the SS gets his girlfriend in the Gestapo to act as a damsel in distress in a restaurant so that Bill can ride to her rescue, and then she can strike up a friendship with Bill and worm her way into his confidence. It works all too well - he is a bit smitten - and she gets the info. This leads the Gestapo back to - her own father! And she was the one telling him the secrets! Yikes!

This is all disclosed early on, so I'm not really spoiling it for you. This was not one of Fox's A list productions AND it has that typical WWII era production preachy shrillness to it, but it does have a few points to recommend it. For one, I don't think I've seen an impressionist/voice actor or a Gestapo love triangle inserted into such a film before as significant plot points.

Also, as much as American films played up the evil side of the Third Reich even early in the war, they were still quite uninformed at this point. They knew there were concentration camps where German political prisoners were kept, but they gave the Nazis too much credit for compassion. The camp shown here has the prisoners looking well fed and looks no worse than a deep south prison of the era that employed chain gangs - although I'm not saying that was not pretty bad.

The end is rather interesting in that it is reminiscent of Casablanca in several ways, down to the irony and a pseudo "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" kind of moment. The thing is, this film came first!

I'd recommend it. It is not long enough to get tiresome, is original in spots, and you get to see Dana Andrews in an early role.

Dana Andrews plays an American radio correspondent whose broadcasts are suspected of concealing codes containing war information. Andrews becomes embroiled with a young Nazi sympathizer, played by Virginia Gilmore, whose father is an ardent anti-Nazi, and whose fiancée (Martin Kosleck) is a Nazi colonel. Andrews manages to pull off some rather outrageous stunts during this film but nevertheless, it's an entertaining, if somewhat typical propaganda film of the era.

Virginia Gilmore is very attractive, while Kosleck, as usual, is mean as dirt as the Nazi. In real life, of course, he got out of Germany just in time, as he was tried in absentia by the Nazis and sentenced to death. He enjoyed playing members of the Third Reich, as he loathed them for what they did to Germany.