Based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hardy Kruger takes center stage as a young, brooding German man who is reunited with his family after WWII. He's spent time in America and is disappointed that his widowed mother has married her brother-in-law. Hardy is pursued by Fee (a takeoff of Ophelia), an emotionally fragile girl, and thwarted by his uncle's cronies when he tries to find out the truth about his father's death. Instead of ghostly visits, he receives phone calls. Instead of staging a prophetic play, Hardy choreographs a modern ballet. Admittedly, it's not a literal adaptation, but it is recognizable.
It's always interesting (and tragic) to see Hardy act in films where he played a Nazi soldier. I struggle to think of a time when he played it as a strict soldier; he always found a way to show the human behind the uniform. Was it deliberate, or was it a subconscious shift as the only way he could stomach taking the role? In The Rest Is Silence, he's a civilian and is able to show his hatred and disgust for the Nazi party. In one scene, he's shown newsreel footage of Adolph Hitler attending his father's funeral and shaking hands with his mother. He's so sickened, he swallows, turns away from the screen, and asks the projectionist to turn it off. In another, he's greeting a young man he hasn't seen boyhood. The friend says, "Before you shake my hand, you should know I was a Nazi." Hardy hesitates, takes a deep breath, and continues to extend his hand. "You must have had your reasons," he responds with a tight smile.
I recently read a fascinating analysis that credited Hardy Kruger with the wave of popular German actors in the post-WWII era. I've watched countless Curd Jurgens, Maximillian Schell, Romy Schneider, and Oskar Werner films, but I never considered the timeline. They all came to prominence (in English-speaking cinema) in the 1960s. In 1957, Curd Jurgens made two English films but played villains; Hardy Kruger starred in The One That Got Away. He was a Nazi soldier in a British POW camp, and the audience was supposed to (and did) hope he could escape and return to Germany! Hardy broke the barrier. Would Schell have won an Academy Award? Would Werner have been cast as the hero in Fahrenheit 451? Would Jurgens have become a sex symbol? We'll never know. But we should give Hardy Kruger the credit he never really received.
If you speak multiple languages, as Hardy did, you'll be able to see a great range of his acting through English, German, and French films. If not, a lot of his films are available with subtitles, including The Rest Is Silence. As Hamlet, he's intense, intellectual, and even talks differently than his usual slow drawl. I wouldn't start with this one if you've never seen him before because he's a little too serious (although he gives Ingrid Andree one of the sexiest onscreen kisses I've ever seen). Rent The One That Got Away first so you can see him the way the rest of the world did.
