Margin for Error

It's just a joy to see Moe Finkelstein,a modest cop ,give lessons in democracy to a consul (the director/actor) and to a German of high birth,a baron !It was a propaganda movie ,but it did not repeat parrot(!) fashion Preminger's peers ' errors (!).Actually the purpose of the movie was to denounce Nazis and it pulls it off with gusto ,thanks to Milton Berle's naive but effective common sense .He probably never read "Tristan Und Isolde" but he knows that his country is the country where you enjoy freedom of expression.The movie cannot be ranked among Preminger's finest works,by a long shot ,but its construction (a long flashback) is a good way to show that all the Germans are not evil when the cop (now a soldier)stands up for his noble friend .There's also a murder mystery a la Agatha Christie a bit far fetched but rather smart. Fine acting,particularly by Joan Benett and Milton Berle.Preminger's character is a bit caricatured.

Preminger also starred and directed the stage play which ran highly successful seasons both on Broadway (264 performances) and the West Coast, so he was a natural for the movie version. Unfortunately, the play is more than a trifle dated, unlike Mrs Luce's other huge stage success, The Women, which is still pointed and amusing even today. By contrast, the women in Margin for Error are not the least bitchy, feline or self-indulgent. Instead, the comedy (such as it is) centers on the efforts of a Jewish cop to come to terms with his duties at the German consulate. He smiles a lot, wins the heart of a serving girl (the lovely Leisl Handl) and has plenty to say and do, but Milton Berle's interpretation never strikes me as either the slightest bit policeman-like or true-to-life. Otto Preminger's portrait of the evil consul is equally one-dimensional, but at least he gives the role presence and charisma. While Preminger rivets attention, Berle is just plain dish-washy. Admittedly, the plot is full of holes, and the other police officers are likewise ridiculously simple-minded. Thank goodness the rest of the cast are better served by the script, particularly Howard Freeman in his best role ever as the strutting, cowardly Mussolini-like bund leader; dashing Carl Esmond as the secretary; and beautiful Joan Bennett as the wife. Production values, led by Cronjager's velvety photography and Day's appealing sets, impress

In order to bring this to the screen in 1943 Margin For Error had to be told in flashback. So it was by star Milton Berle as he relates to his fellow GIs his and Carl Esmond's story as they are about to hit a beach.

Margin For Error which was written by Clare Booth Luce had a run of 264 performances on Broadway during the 1939-40 season. Only Otto Preminger as the sadistic Nazi consul in New York before FDR broke diplomatic relationship with them and star of the story and Edward McNamara playing a police captain repeat their roles from Broadway.

Milton Berle takes the place of Sam Levene playing New York City policeman Moe Finkelstein who draws from McNamara the unenviable task of guarding the Third Reich embassy in New York. Can you imagine that in New York there are a sizable number of people not happy with the doctrines of the Third Reich, a lot of them with names like Finkelstein? Still Berle does his duty and at the same time is in a position to foil a few Nazi schemes.

Otto Preminger is looking like he's loving playing the villain here, a man without a single redeeming feature you can name. He's even stealing from the Third Reich because he has a nasty gambling habit which ultimately brings him down. He's married to Joan Bennett whose mother was American although she's in love with the embassy's secretary Carl Esmond.

Howard Freeman is in the cast as the leader of the American Bund in a characterization a whole lot like Fritz Kuhn. Kuhn had ambitions to be America's Hitler, but he was a bungler and a clod and just didn't have the right stuff. Still he was what later would be termed a useful idiot, but even Freeman's not putting up with Preminger for too much longer.

Watching Berle in another feature from 20th Century Fox it becomes even more abundantly clear that Darryl Zanuck saw in him a comedy star who could be as bankable at the box office as Bob Hope was with Paramount. He was certainly more convincing in this instant as a Jew than Hope would have been, but the lines and situations were pure Hope.

Margin For Error still holds up well as a World War II era item than a whole lot of others do.

"Margin for Error" is a propaganda film starring, of all people, Milton Berle! It's an odd but entertaining picture and is still watchable today.

The story begins on a transport taking soldiers to fight in Europe. One of the soldiers, Moe Finklestein (Milton Berle), tells the men a story to buck up their morale and get them to fight as a team.

It seems that before the war, Finkelstein was a New York City cop and he was given the dubious duty of being stationed at the German consulate in order to protect them. Being Jewish (heck, EVERY officer in the place was Jewish), he was loathe to accept the assignment. Once there, he comes to see that the head of the consultate, Herr Baumer (Otto Preminger) is a nasty piece of work. Baumer gives ample reason for everyone there to kill him and ultimately when he dies, it's "Murder on the Orient Express"! Who did it and why? See the film.

This film is unique because most WWII propaganda films are incredibly serious. But this one has a lot of comedic elements which make it a welcome break. Well worth your time...and...oddly...fun.

Policeman Milton Berle is assigned to guarding the German consulate in New York, despite his protests. He woos the German maid, Liesl Handl, gets along well with aristocratic consulate secretary Carl Esmond, thinks the consulate's wife, Joan Bennett, is quite a looker (so do I). That leaves the consul, played by director Otto Preminger as if he is Eric von Stroheim, He is a stinker. Meanwhile, various plots are playing out within the walls.

On paper, this looks like it should have been a pretty good movie. It's based on a Claire Booth Luce play, and the screenplay is by Lillie Hayward and Samuel Fuller. Yet the propaganda content overwhelms everything so much that the jokes have aged very poorly. The result is a desultory effort.

I venture to suggest that Preminger had no talent for directing comedy. He finished up a couple of films for Lubitsch in a manner tha lacked sparkle, and spent the rest of his career doing important and often fascinating dramas, I venture to say that it's just as well.