Tunnel 28

I watched the Berlin Wall come down in 1989. This film brings back some haunting memories. The despair of people realizing that they are trapped in the cage called East Berlin. And what we know about the Stasi--the East German secret police--makes me cringe realizing how everybody was spied upon.

Yes, the movie has a happy ending. But, while 28 people found freedom through the tunnel, think of those who lived out their days behind the wall.

For some reason, Turner Classic Movies here in the UK keeps showing this film at 5 or 6 in the morning. It deserves to be more widely known. As another reviewer noted, although it was made soon after the events that inspired it, it's no exploitation film. It's a solidly scripted and acted story with multidimensional characters. I wish more movies made now which are based on headlines were as thoughtful and respectful.

That said, the film's story only resembles the actual escape from East Berlin in the way that it shows 28 people fleeing from a tunnel. The real Tunnel 28 (as it was called, and this was an alternative title of the film; in a 1960s poster for it I saw in the Museum in the House at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, it was titled Tunnel 28) was built in May 1962 from a in a street in West Berlin that was close to the Wall; the tunnel ended in a basement in a house in East Berlin. It was not a family but a group of students who constructed the tunnel. They hoped to continue using the tunnel but the night after the 28 people escaped it was flooded by a burst pipe. I've read that some East Berliners hoped to reuse this tunnel during the following winter, after the water froze, but I don't know if this is true. Several people were told about it and when they came to find the tunnel's entrance they were arrested by the East German police.

Interestingly enough, the tunnel's building was financed by NBC in exchange for rights to exclusive footage of the students working on its construction and footage of refugees escaping. I've always wanted to see this documentary but I've never found a copy of it. Some of the NBC footage is featured in a recent German documentary `Der Tunnel - Die Wahre Geschichte' that interviews the builders. While filming this documentary researchers found remains of the tunnel that they dug.

I don't know why the writers of `Escape from East Berlin' felt that they had to change the story. I suppose it was to make it more like a suspense and adventure film. I'm glad that the story they wrote is sympathetic with the East Berliners' point of view and it is unsensational: it must have been a terrific temptation at the time to drive home the horrors of the situation and the horrors of Communism. It holds up very well, aside from one thing that annoyed me. How could people escape from such a narrow and meandering tunnel so quickly holding suitcases and luggage (including china)? In the actual tunnel escapes the refugees were told what the neighbour tells Erica's parents: bring nothing. Besides, carrying suitcases through the streets would have alerted the Stasi's suspicions immediately.

Robert Siodmak had nothing to prove when he made "Escape from East Berlin".Maybe his film ,although inspired by real facts ,looks more like fiction,but he knew what he was talking about: Driven away from his land by Goebbels after "Brennendes Geheimnis " in 1933, he took refuge in France where he made at least two classics ("Mollenard" and "Piège" ),then in America where he reached peaks of films noirs ("cry of the city" "spiral staircase" "criss cross" ....).When he returned to Germany ,he depicted his country after the war ("die Ratten" ) without indulgence.Another movie made in France ("L'Affaire Nina B") dealt with Nazi criminals .

Siomak's genius as a film noir past master can still be felt in "escape...." ,notably in the first scenes where the characters seem to be buried alive in walls of stone and barbed wire.A short prologue with a voice over tells us so: "these men and women have done nothing and they are prisoners..."Don Murray looks too American but it's not a big problem.Since 1989,the Wall of shame has fortunately become a thing of the past.Siomak's movie was one of the first thrusts.

I recently saw this movie on television and it was of interest to me because back in August 2006 I visited Germany for the first time and went to Berlin. I was accompanied by German friends who live in Hamburg. One of them was working in Berlin when the Wall fell in 1989.

While in Berlin I toured the Wall museum and of course visited Checkpoint Charlie. I am a baby boomer who grew up during the Cold War and I well remember the TV footage of the Wall and of people trying to escape. Escape from East Berlin may seem rather old-fashioned today but I thought it was a gritty, true-to-life type of film, even if liberties were taken with the actual events of Tunnel 28.

It was interesting that while my German friends and I drove through Berlin, they would constantly inform me "now we are in The East" or "now we are in the West"...the same thing when we were on the Autobahn...apparently Germans still refer to "East" and "West"...it will probably take a generation of two more before East and West Berlin and East and West Germany are relegated to history in the minds of the German people.

Elaine Clearwater FL

Based on the true story of an actual escape under the Berlin Wall, "Escape Form East Berlin" is a sometimes slow moving film that does manage to capture a bit of the atmosphere of the time. It was, of course, the height of the Cold War, with the Communists having built a wall dividing the Soviet occupied East Berlin, from the rest of the city, which was occupied by the British, French and Americans. The viewer certainly gets the point that paranoia is called for in East Berlin. There are guards and soldiers everywhere, and people have to be careful who they talk to and what they talk about. Even one's own family isn't necessarily going to keep confidences. The opening scenes are of an attempt to smash a truck through the wall, and the fate of the driver leaves us with no doubt that the Communist guards were quite willing to kill to ensure that no one escaped their socialist paradise. That atmosphere was captured well, although there was surprisingly little direct political commentary, aside from a few sarcastic comments on the lips of some of the characters about the "benefits" of a planned economy.

The movie mostly revolves around the effort to build a tunnel from the basement of a house near the Wall to the West. The main character is Kurt (Don Murray) - the driver to an East German major and his wife - who befriends the sister of the man killed in the opening escape attempt, and who (not realizing that her brother is dead) wants to join him in the west. Others find out about the plan and join in, and eventually there are 28 people who want to make their way through the tunnel. The last few minutes of the movie are quite suspenseful, as East German authorities try desperately to stop the escape attempt.

This is certainly a propaganda film. That much is obvious. It's also obvious that it was made pretty quickly. The actual escape on which it's based had only taken place a few months before the movie had its debut. Aside from Murray and Werner Klemperer, most of the cast are better known for their work in European films. It's a little bit uneven, but it's also an interesting portrayal of life behind the Berlin Wall. (6/10)