Garbo: El espía

Garbo was a Spanish secret agent during World War II who sold his independent services to the Nazis, while really working for the allies. His brilliantly imaginative approach to espionage was to invent dozens of fictional subordinate spies, then make up false information to feed to the Germans.

This potentially interesting subject was spoiled by an odd attempt at a documentary that appears to have been intended to be artistic and funny, rather than informational. The film bounces back and forth between talking heads who remain unidentified until halfway through, and clips from old B movies. All this is accompanied by irrelevant, anachronistic music and silly science fiction sound effects. The overall result is unfocused, annoying, and almost unwatchable.

This documentary deserves to be remade by professionals. Characters speak in different languages with no translation. People come and go with no segways. it has potential. I see my friend Nigel West in the credits. perhaps he can shed some light.

As a WW2 buff I am reasonably au fait with the deceptions around the Normandy landings. However that was not really relevant as the film provides enough information for any viewer.

In a quirky film that teases you along it is a little gem and a great story - but true story. The director manges to in a sense bamboozle the viewer so what is true and what is mirage is not really explicit until one is gripped by the tale. The inter-cutting of news reels and fictional spy movies provides atmosphere and refreshes the memory on what a confused arena Europe was in the thirties and forties.

I defy anyone not to be better informed and amused by this excellent film.

This was a disappointing film for me to watch. I had viewed other films about Garbo that I enjoyed more. It started out as a 1940s newsreel so that fooled me and my wife if this was a film or newsreel history or what. Then they rattle off a bunch of partial clips of 2 or 3 interviews with people only saying much later who they are. Nigel West appears and sheds light on how he found Garbo after the war. The WW2 cartoons of Private Snafu with the German spy woman are pretty cheap to get off the public domain and repetitive to watch. Why American cartoons? No German cartoons of English spy woman footage around? I liked how they talked about how stupid the German's were from a rational sense, believing many superstitious things, feuling Garbo's imagination to make agents. They do joke about an English sense of humor (and lack of German humor) that may offer deep insight on why Garbo was so successful so I will credit it for that, 6 of 10 stars. I would recommend watching this as a supplementary film to the other productions about Garbo, they are more coherent and entertaining.

I absolutely loved the movie. It was entertaining and mixing Hollywood spy movies with the real narrative was brilliant. Prior to viewing this movie, I had no idea this man existed and the role he played in making the D-day landings a success. He acted solely out of the motivation to save civilization from the horrors that a Nazi victory would have brought. Had it not been for him the D Day landings would likely have been a disaster and the war would have dragged on for perhaps two more years and maybe Hitler would have had time to make more rockets or even atomic bombs. This man single handedly fooled the Germans so many times and even had them believe that the D-day landings were only a diversion but were so successful that the allies cancelled the real invasion at Calais. After the war he still received money from the grateful Germans for his invaluable service. He never speaks in the movie but befittingly does visit the graves at Normandy. An informative and well presented documentary about a man who sought little glory for himself and yet was responsible for saving so many lives and turning the course of the war.