G.P.U.

Laura Solari is a Russian concert violinist touring Europe. She also works for the O. G. P. U., which is odd, because the Bolsheviks killed her family, and she is out for revenge. Will Quadflieg is a student, driving a truck part-time, whom the O. G. P. U get to work for them, by blackmailing him, then blackmailing him again.

Some of these things will be explained by the end of this movie, but not all of them. It's directed byKarl Ritter, who has a very poor reputation as making propagandistic, wordy potboilers. Well, this one is very propagandistic -- Germany having invaded Russia, it was time to make it clear that they were bad, bad people -- but that's the script that was handed to him. In terms of moviemaking with a bad script, it's pretty well done, with lots of moving shots, location shooting in Paris, some interesting Dutch angles, and the editing is top notch, with a nice montage of locations in France and the Low Countries by Ritter's regular editor, Conrad von Molo. Judging by this film, and the two other films from Ritter that I have seen, I would suggest that the low opinion that critics like Karsten Witte have is based on the intellectual content of his films, rather than his abilities to make one that, once you strip out the egregious propaganda, is engaging.

What's that? Ritter was also the producer and the writer?

When this film was released the Nazis and the Soviets were at war rather than allies.So clearly the Nazis had to justify their invasion of Russia by showing how cruel,and deceitful and merciless were the Russians.the problem with this film is that it is rather ponderous and at 97 minutes far too long to hold peoples attention.As is usual in this type of film the Russians,or however is the enemy is shown in the most unflattering light possible and the Nazis in an extremely heroic light.The bombing of Rotterdam being shown as a heroic venture to free the captives of the Russians rather than the reality which was the bombing and invasion of a hitherto neutral country.Such things as truth never bothered the Nazis.