This movie is currently being shown on a pretty regular basis in the GB on the Movies4Men or Movies4Men2 channels.
"In post WW2 Vienna, four soldiers have to deal with various tragic stories, in particular, a woman whose POW husband has escaped. Ralph Meeker & Michael Medwin star, 1951.
Length: 97 mins Year: 1951 "Stars: Ralph Meeker, Vivece Lindfors Genre: War Director: Leopold Lindtberg Class: PG
Next Airing: Friday 28th December 2007 at 3:15pm
May contain spoilers
At the start of the Movie introducing the characters the Russian asks the French and the English sergeants for their names and writes them down in a notebook which we then see and can then read the names as it is shot in close up. He doesn't ask the American to whom he just looks at and this indicates that he knows the American from earlier times which is the point of dwelling on the close-up shot.
The problem with this is that we have been able to read the names he wrote in his notebook but of course he wouldn't write in the Latin alphabet but would use the Cyrillic which is unfortunate for the plot, but for most viewers this would mean the script would be indecipherable.
Presumably the director had to make a decision which had to kick-start one of the film's 2 intertwined story lines. Strange though that the director was not consistent as later in the film in a Flashback sequence it told the tale of how the Soviet and the American first met. After the elation of meeting the Russian carves his name on a tree but this time in how he really would: in Cyrillic characters.
The other main interrelated thread of the film intertwines the story of a missing Austrian POW who goes AWOL from a POW train. The Austrian POW cannot wait for his release from captivity in Soviet hands and goes AWOL in order to be reunited with his beautiful Austrian wife (Vivece Lindfors). The story line interplays between the love interest of the woman to the American and the Russian who is prompted by both a duty to recapture an "enemy" and fear of the consequences of knowing things which could land him in deep trouble if he were to be silent and then found out are charted in the growing animosity between the American and Russian, presumably an allegory of the then increasing tensions of Post-WWII Europe.
We don't quite know if or when the missing husband will appear or not but if he doesn't then the American Sergeant spends much of his time trying to ingratiate himself with her to try to book his place at the head of the queue if he doesn't.
In many ways the actions he takes and the reaction of the Russian are quite believable and the story line rings true: who could blamer him with a woman who looked like that and the Russian with a Government like he had. I just thought though that in the end for the American beauty or no she was rather too much of a whiner or maybe perhaps too loyal...well maybe women were more likely to behave like that in those days.
"In post WW2 Vienna, four soldiers have to deal with various tragic stories, in particular, a woman whose POW husband has escaped. Ralph Meeker & Michael Medwin star, 1951.
Length: 97 mins Year: 1951 "Stars: Ralph Meeker, Vivece Lindfors Genre: War Director: Leopold Lindtberg Class: PG
Next Airing: Friday 28th December 2007 at 3:15pm
May contain spoilers
At the start of the Movie introducing the characters the Russian asks the French and the English sergeants for their names and writes them down in a notebook which we then see and can then read the names as it is shot in close up. He doesn't ask the American to whom he just looks at and this indicates that he knows the American from earlier times which is the point of dwelling on the close-up shot.
The problem with this is that we have been able to read the names he wrote in his notebook but of course he wouldn't write in the Latin alphabet but would use the Cyrillic which is unfortunate for the plot, but for most viewers this would mean the script would be indecipherable.
Presumably the director had to make a decision which had to kick-start one of the film's 2 intertwined story lines. Strange though that the director was not consistent as later in the film in a Flashback sequence it told the tale of how the Soviet and the American first met. After the elation of meeting the Russian carves his name on a tree but this time in how he really would: in Cyrillic characters.
The other main interrelated thread of the film intertwines the story of a missing Austrian POW who goes AWOL from a POW train. The Austrian POW cannot wait for his release from captivity in Soviet hands and goes AWOL in order to be reunited with his beautiful Austrian wife (Vivece Lindfors). The story line interplays between the love interest of the woman to the American and the Russian who is prompted by both a duty to recapture an "enemy" and fear of the consequences of knowing things which could land him in deep trouble if he were to be silent and then found out are charted in the growing animosity between the American and Russian, presumably an allegory of the then increasing tensions of Post-WWII Europe.
We don't quite know if or when the missing husband will appear or not but if he doesn't then the American Sergeant spends much of his time trying to ingratiate himself with her to try to book his place at the head of the queue if he doesn't.
In many ways the actions he takes and the reaction of the Russian are quite believable and the story line rings true: who could blamer him with a woman who looked like that and the Russian with a Government like he had. I just thought though that in the end for the American beauty or no she was rather too much of a whiner or maybe perhaps too loyal...well maybe women were more likely to behave like that in those days.