Tonnerre sur Berlin

The story begins during the latter portion of WWII. Captain MacLain (Mel Ferrer) is an escaped American POW and it seems very unlikely that he'll manage to make it back to the Allied lines. However, unexpectedly, a German family, the Angermanns, hide the Captain from the authorities and eventually he is able to make it back to his people.

Shortly after this, Germany falls to the Allies. Since the family is now in eastern Berlin, the have to deal with the Soviet invasion. Women throughout the city are raped and Erika Angermann (Dana Wynter) has to do much to avoid this fate. To do so, she must move towards the American lines...hoping their soldiers are less cruel. Now, although she isn't being forced in sexual situations, there's almost no other choice as jobs are scarce and many German women turn tricks to avoid starvation. What is to happen with Erika? And, what about that Captain from the beginning of the film...what will he have to do with Erika and her future?

This story is very well done. It's an unusual story based on some actual events and manages to be both a drama, and later, a romance. Well worth seeing.

Some of the great movies of all time such as "Gone With the Wind", "Doctor Zhivago" and "War and Peace" have set their characters adrift against a backdrop of momentous historical events.

"Fräulein" is certainly set against awesome historical events, but the filmmakers seem to have tackled the drama with one hand tied behind their backs - and the old Hollywood Production Code probably did much of the tying.

The film is set in Germany at the end of WW2. Erika Angermann (Dana Wynter), a young German woman encounters an escaping American prisoner, Major Foster MacLain (Mel Ferrer) who plays a significant role in her life. She flees from the Russian zone to the American Zone and undergoes many of the things women in Germany experienced at the end of the war. The sense of degradation and humiliation visited upon the defeated nation is touched on in a number of sequences.

However Erika's episode with the Red Army stretches credulity. Although upwards of 2,000,000 German women were raped by the avenging Red Army, Erika manages to stay chaste, miraculously slipping through their fingers, despite being so eye-catching that in reality she would probably have been the object of a full-scale pincer movement.

The film was based on a novel that had a harder edge, but of course a Hollywood movie in 1956 had to tone things down. Even with those limitations, more could have been done to capture a sense of the great upheaval and dislocation of millions of people that took place. Despite some footage shot on location, the direction and photography for the most part is pedestrian.

A few sequences do resonate: Erika briefly seen as one of the Trümmerfrau or rubble woman; Lt. Hugo Von Metzler (Helmut Dantine), the once proud officer reduced to making lampshades; the cruel way in which Erika is set up as a prostitute by people she trusted.

Dana Wynter (who was born in Germany) was an actress who made an impression on me growing up in the 1950's ("Something of Value", "D-Day the Sixth of June"); she seemed the epitome of beauty and elegance. Maybe Hollywood didn't know what to do with her; surely she should have become a bigger star.

"Fräulein" is interesting for the time in which it was set and its beautiful star. Unfortunately it settled for being a romance rather than something more telling.

I have seen more authentic films about post-war Germany but this tale is pleasant enough viewing. There are more than a few instances of clumsy direction and poor acting which are somewhat disengaging, but the film does seem to improve as it goes along. For some reason the initial scenes are very brief and perfunctory. Further into the film there are some quite dramatic scenes with the heroine escaping various fates. Dana Wynter is very beautiful eye candy, but she is saddled with a poorly written character and radiates sulkiness for most of the film, before an improbable U-turn. Mel Ferrer is a likeable and graceful hero (cute butt, Mel!) but is scarcely portrayed with any depth. When it comes to charm, the piano-playing friend steals the scene. I enjoyed the "lucky break" the heroine experiences at the end of the film, which leaves you with a warm feeling. So overall, a positive rating, but I think the guy who wrote the novel (by all accounts a more realistic version) has probably never stopped complaining about what Hollywood did to his opus..

I liked this sweet, but caustic movie of post-World War II. It could be tearful for others besides me, but I think that people who like this type of movie will also enjoy this film. So many people were caught up in similar circumstances during this war and afterward and is very similar to some situations in Korea and Vietnam. It is basically a love story, but full of pathos and irony that was so typical of the times of WWII and afterward. Some reviewers may take issue with the tale of a German girl helping a US soldier, then being held by the communists, but it is a mere sidestory to the true love story that exists in the story and film. f you liked the following movies: From Here to Eternity - Hiroshima, Mon Amour - Love is A Many Splendored Thing - Sand Pebbles, then you will enjoy Fraulein.

Despite Fassbinder's admiration for Douglas Sirk this glossy production in colour and 'scope by his compatriot Henry Koster more closely resembles the younger director's 'The Marriage of Maria Braun' than anything Sirk himself made (which might not be mere coincidence since leading man Mel Ferrer was later in Fassbinder's 'Lili Marlene').

Because allegiances had switched in the intervening ten years since the time in which it was set the Russians are far less attractively portrayed than the Germans; but at least Theodor Bikel gets to sing!