La ville écartelée

The movie, "The Big Lift," starring Montgomery Clift as Flight Engineer Danny MacCullough, represents a time machine back into the beginnings of the Cold War. It's shot in gritty black and white by director George Seaton to enhance the images of life among the ruins of post WWII Berlin. It's also a very nice slice of Air Force flying in the early 50's and as a professional pilot, I can say that the flying sequences showing the C-54 cockpit are quite realistic. In one scene, Clift runs cockpit checklists for the pilots who are flying that are completely authentic. There is also a nice description of how GCA approach control works, which still exists as a backup at todays airports.

Some claim that Paul Douglas' character, "Kowalski," isn't believable as an anti-German bigot, but I thought he was "spot-on." There are men in their 80's today who still feel the same way.

German actor O.E. Hasse portrays "Stieber, the Scrounger." He's a bit of comic relief as a spy for the Russians, watching Templehof field, counting the Allied aircraft as they land. He says that he has to lessen the count so that the Russians will believe him. Look for Hasse in another excellent war picture, "Decision Before Dawn", where he plays Wehrmacht Colonel Von Ecker of the XI Panzer Corps, deployed east of the Rhine to counter the American Seventh Army during the closing months of the war. Also like "The Big Lift," this movie was shot amongst the ruins of Germany and used real Army personnel on screen.

"Decision Before Dawn," "Battleground," "The Best Years of Our Lives" and "The Big Lift" are four b+w movies made in this era which attempted to get a real taste for the movie goer of what the men experienced during World War II and the period just after. All four are favorites of mine and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Thank you for reading my comments.

Montgomery Clift had made his screen debut in 1947 in The Search and in the short period of four years made some films considered now as classics. He was also in Red River. The Heiress, and A Place in the Sun. The Big Lift doesn't belong in that category.

Still it's an intriguing idea that George Seaton. With only five actors in the plot, have the rest of the film be actual army personnel and German civilians. And the amateur cast does fine playing themselves. I guess it saved a whole lot salary. It gives the movie a documentary feel to it.

Monty and Paul Douglas are two American GIs participating in The Berlin Airlift. This was America and it's allies Great Britain and France in a joint effort to airlift supplies into Berlin after Stalin closed off ground access to Berlin in an effort to force the other three occupying powers out of Berlin.

It was a great propaganda victory for the west at the beginning of the Cold War. Fed a hungry city at the same time calling Joe Stalin's bluff. One Harry Truman's best decisions as President, a win/win for sure.

The story involves Clift and Douglas and their interaction with some German civilians they hooked up with. Clift is a sensitive soul as he always is and Douglas is the rough hewn, but kindly type he usually is. They have differing views about the Germans from fighting them in the late War which was only five years old at the time The Big Lift was made.

Let us say that both of them learn something from their experiences by the time the film ends and the Berlin Airlift is officially over.

Not in the pantheon of great films for Clift and Douglas, but an interesting and in this case historical piece of cinema.

Part docu and part drama--it's a look at life in post-war Germany. It's entertaining and educational. Clift made this and "The Search" while in Germany in the late 1940s. Seeing Berlin as it was then-is shocking and eye opening. Then look at Syria, among other places today, and see how far we haven't come....

The shooting of the film on location in Germany is what makes the whole film work and memorable. The story in itself is not really that great, but probably it grasps our attention because of the surroundings: the ruins, the gloomy statues and the simple and down-to-earth life of the common people. Had it been a Hollywood stage production, there wouldn't have been much to it, but once the movie enters Berlin it gets to another level. The same goes for the acting. Acting among the local population with only two brought-in American actors in the cast ( the main characters ) must have been an inspiration.

To say that a film is dated because it was shot on location in 1950 (which, I suppose, is history for most of us now) is pretty inadequate. If anything makes this film still interesting it is BECAUSE it was shot on location in 1950. As a young German who only knows a wealthy comfortable democratic Germany I find the very setting the most intriguing, as is the case with the more serious "Germania anno Zero" by Rosselini. The film has its values, however, but is, admittedly, more on the entertaining side. Nice to spot later Haimatfilm and TV favourites in a Hollywood production. If you like Berlin and don't mind an "old" look, watch Billy Wilder's "One, Two, Three", shot 10 years later. To me as funny as "Some Like it Hot", and that means VERY funny.