Le médecin de Stalingrad

Takes up of a great movie, awkwardly neglected by IMDB's users, just 6.3 is an outrage to this major achievement, a high class German production, after the German soldier surrender at Stalingrad they were sent to POW camp, among them there has a fabulous Dr. Fritz Bohler (O. H. Hasse), he was forbidden to make any surgery, nevertheless he does with rudimentary tools, sadly he was discovered and was put in the Martial Court to did it, however his efforts pleased a Russian Doctor who somehow forgives him, when the young boy son of a high Commander Worotilow has a brain surgery to be done, he gets a trust relationship from Worotilow, in other hand his right arm Dr. Sellnow comes to blows with the beauty female Captain Alexandra Kasalinskaja (Eva Bartok) who has an unusual relationship with the evil and possessive Senior Lieutenant Markow, meanwhile something between them have been arousing, their constant quarrel was slowing becomes in love, a magnificent picture showing us the other side of the same coin, this turn the hero is a German Doctor, highly recommended!!

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First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD-R / Rating: 9

The movie is quite captivating and reminds me of similar older black and white dramas, such as Der Blaue Engel. The characters are beliavable, situations are realistic. In conversations, good points are made, as POWs are wondering how their lives came to such precarious end. The movie is quite dynamic, does not let you borre at all. Judging from real life conversations between people who witnessed WW2, sentiments are genuine. People feel forced to mistreat each other as cruel social machinery leaves them no choice. Jokingly, doctor tells a fellow prisoner that every 25 years something happens and you end up in situations like that. Ultimately, many more perils and dilemmas strike people. Love, moral obligations, and so on add to the complicated fabric of life... Somehow this film if more visceral, perhaps because it is chronologically closer to that war, and people in it and who worked on it expressed what they saw and felt. The war ended a little over 10 years after this film was made. I highly recommend it.

West German war drama with O. E. Hasse and Eva Bartok

In the 1980s, Heinz G. Konsalik (1921-1999), alongside Johannes Mario Simmel, was a very successful writer who regularly celebrated bestseller success with his rather trivial novels. His most popular book, based on an actual model, had already been made into a film in 1958 by successful director Geza von Radvanyi (1907-1986, MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM / DAS RIESENRAD). "The Doctor from Stalingrad" was produced by the omnipresent Ilse Kubaschewski (1907-2001), who also released the film through her Gloria film distributor.

It tells the story of an upright doctor (O. E. Hasse, 1903-1978) from Würzburg who, after the defeat in Stalingrad, devoted himself to caring for his fellow prisoners in the Soviet prisoner of war camp. Together with the loyal medic Pelz (Mario Adorf), he not only fights against illness and dirt, but also against the harassment of the Soviet system. The attractive Soviet doctor Kosalinskaya (Eva Bartok, 1927-1998) is definitely an opponent of the doctor with integrity. First the love for the young doctor Dr. Sellnow (Walther Reyer, 1922-1999) causes the principled communist to thaw slightly, which of course doesn't suit the first lieutenant (Hannes Messemer, once again cast as a spurned lover) who fawns over her.

Ah yes, you can see how badly constructed the events are! But for free, the film definitely knows how to entertain and brings an uncomfortable topic (the fate of German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union) to the big screen. It doesn't matter that there are another couple in love (Vera Tschechowa and Paul Bösiger), a Soviet boy (Michael ANDE) saved by the doctor and a German Soviet spy (Siegfried Lowitz, 1914-1999). So variety is ensured. Eddi Arent (1925-2013) is also there in a more dramatic role as a desperate camp inmate from East Prussia.

Walther Reyer, who appeared as Jedermann / Everyman at the Salzburg Festival in the 1960s, is known as the villain from the "Tiger of Eschnapur" (1958). The enchanting Eva Bartok caused a sensation not only with her remarkable film successes (DER ROTE KORSAR (1952) with Burt Lancaster and the proto-giallo BLUTIGE SEIDE (1964) by Mario Bava) but also with her turbulent private life. For a whole year she was in a stormy marriage with the German-speaking world star Curd Jürgens (1915-1982). The great Hitchcock star O. E. Hasse (I CONFESS, 1953) is also known as Lilli Palmer's nasty husband in DER GLÄSERNE TURM / THE GLASS TOWER (1957). Shortly before his death, O. E. Hasse appeared in a notable role in the crime series DER ALTE (with Siegfried Lowitz). In "Konkurs" (1977) he is the very rich father of the attractive Christiane Krüger, who is suddenly kidnapped. A great actor!