Fräulein Doktor

After watching the rather sloppy WW1 spy thriller, Madam Lili (1969)starring Julie Andrews on tv this afternoon, I suddenly thought I had seen a far superior WW1 spy thriller. All I could remember was that it was produced by Dino De Laurentis. It only took a short search on IMDB to find Fraulein Doktor. Once I recognised the title the memories came flooding back. It is, for its time, a reasonably well crafted story revolving around true events such as the death of Kitchener and the German offensives of 1918.It also has a female spy who is much more believable than Julie Andrews! As with other reviewers the first and strongest memory was of the well produced battle scenes and of men and horses in gas masks. If you have an interest in war films and particularly WW1 it is a film well worth seeing if you have the opportunity.

I am not ordinarily a fan of spy thrillers because the spies always seem to live in their own world oblivious to the realities of the rest of the world around them. But this film shows for the first time a spy who sees first hand the results of her work. There is blood on her hands literally as well as symbolically. It is interesting that the one time we see a spy coming face to face with the realities of their handiwork, it is a woman who is the spy.

Like others have mentioned, the battlefield scenes contain some of the most horrific scenes of war carnage ever shot. Not since Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" has the futility and horror of battle been so profoundly depicted. No war was more futile and insane than the first world war, and the grisly images of melting skin and soldier's bodies spasming and writhing in agony are a perfect illustration of one of the biggest turning points in world history. War was no longer played according to rules or any standard of humanity. This is also poignantly shown in a scene when a German general reluctantly pins a medal on "Fraulein Doktor" because she'd killed Lord Kitchener and Kitchener had been a personal friend of his.

One has to put aside some of the 60s-style make-up and hairstyles, but most of the acting is very good and the whole movie will keep your attention all the way through to to the riveting climax. Id' rank this along with "Gallipoli", "Paths of Glory" and "King and Country" as one of the best WWI movies ever made. And to echo some of the other comments here.... I wish I had taped this!

I saw this film by chance on the small box. It has a fantastic and chilling scene about poisonous gas. A lot about fanatical patriotism. A bit of eroticism. I can't believe it's still waiting for 5 votes!!

The gas attack scene is impressive without a doubt... and there is certainly here a chillingly accurate rendition of the horrors of war... The comparisons with later films such as Jacob's Ladder are fine as long as this one gets the nod as the superior one (no cheap letdown surprise in the end!).

But what makes this film stand out for me is that it breaks a barrier - an important one even for the ''sexy year'' of 1969...

For the first time ever to my knowledge we had two major female stars embrace in such a suggestive way it left nothing to the imagination and it was thus the first ''big'' sapphic display with two stars!

We would have to wait until the 80's for another such exhibition - Catherine Deneuve (the new Capucine?) and another Suzy (Susan Sarandon) in The Hunger.

Capucine was a major star - bigger than Suzy Kendall at the time. She had co-starred with William Holden, Peter Sellers and David Niven... To see her cast as this very sapphic Dr.Saforet was indeed... surprising.

Both actresses perhaps paid with their careers for their daring avant-gardedness here, in this most unique war film, or so it seems...

Two films of the 1960s I want to see in their entirety but as time goes by I don't think I ever will. Those films are Fraulein Doktor(1969) & Sands of the Kalahari(1965), both released by Paramount in the US. I have a reasonably good copy of Kalahari taped off of TV with the expected commercial cuts. But this is not the whole movie. I haven't seen nothing of Fraulein Doktor since I last saw it 25 to 30 years ago and as time goes by memory fades. I remember two scenes in Fraulein Doktor distinctly, the horseback poison gas scene & Suzy Kendall crying her eyes out in the back of a military vehicle after having committed once last deceit and afterward she wanted no more of espionage. Two memorable scenes. I agree with the other posters that the major studios will give a goofy modern joke of a film a wide video release but will completely ignore these gems. If I'm not mistaken neither Fraulein Doktor nor Sands of the Kalahari have had a home video release of any kind be it: Betamax, VHS, 8mm, Laserdisc or DVD. There!, ... five different formats from the last 30 years and these two movies cannot get a home video release of some sorts. There are other films from this era that also have never seen the light of the 'video' day. But time marches on, 40 years now, for the best print materials from films like FD & SotK. It would be a tragedy if we were to lose the best printing sources of these two films(at just 40 yrs) forever if they are not restored for present day audiences to enjoy. We're not talking about silent films, we're talking films that are as recent as 40 years ago. Another poster mentioned the Sicilian Clan(1968) which I saw for the first time a few weeks before 9/11/01. Excellent film and not on video yet either to my knowledge. But the other two films are wonderful and deserve to be on DVD.