NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Blucher One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

alanrhobson The Cross of Lorraine has many virtues - but also some serious flaws.It is gripping and involving, and has excellent performances and characterisations. Gene Kelly's excellent performance gives the lie to the claims by most of the leading film critics (eg. Leslie Halliwell, David Quinlan) that he couldn't really act (Halliwell said that his acting ability was 'minimal', whilst Quinlan said that he 'never convinced' as an actor). Had they forgotten his terrific performance here? As another reviewer has also said, the half-forgotten German character actor Tonio Selwart is also very good as the German commandant, as is Jean-Pierre Aumont as the hero.The film is also very well directed, for the most part, and has many good scenes.However, there are some disturbing aspects, partly due to the presence as co-scriptwriter of Ring Lardner Jr. Lardner was a member of the American Communist Party, despite the fact that Communism had been responsible for millions of deaths in Russia in the 1920s and 1930s. His sympathies can be seen in the film in a number of ways. The traitor, Duval, played by Hume Cronyn, is shown as a capitalist wine merchant who puts business above loyalty. The traitor could have been given any occupation at all by the scriptwriters (French collaborators were from all sorts of occupations in real life) but Lardner had to make a heavy-handed swipe at capitalism.Similarly, the Spanish republican, Rodriguez (Joseph Calleia), is shown as as a heroic figure even though this charming character's aim in life is to kill as many fascists as possible. His positive portrayal is despite the fact that Spanish republicans were responsible for the murder of thousands of priests, nuns, middle class figures and other 'enemies of the state' in republican-controlled areas of Spain in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).There is also another uncomfortable aspect to the film, due presumably to a combination of script and direction. The film positively revels in the slaughter of German soldiers in the climatic battle - even though in actual fact those particular Germans hadn't killed anyone in the village at the point when the insurrection starts. The film gleefully shows German soldiers being burnt alive, bludgeoned to death, and so on, seeming to take pride in allocating them grisly deaths.So, although this is a high quality film in most respects, it is also deeply flawed.

sadako1998 The POW movie is a genre that was at the height of it's popularity in the 1950/60's sometimes giving an amusing almost nostalgic gloss of the treatment of prisoners during WW2, therefore this movie (made in 1943) is an entertaining if somewhat historically dubious entry into the category.The movie opens just before France falls to the Germans in 1940, with a group of French soldiers rounded up and placed in a camp ran by the most sadastic Nazi's Hollywood conjure up, amongst them one of the 1940's favourite villain's Peter Lorre. The movie is gritty, the Nazi's gleefully watching the men tear each other apart over bread, shooting a Priest for praying or brutally kicking chained up men in the face. Seeing Gene Kelly's battered face, (effective and shocking make-up)what patriotic, moral human wouldn't want to spit a huge, gob of saliva in a Nazi's face or cheer when the hero stabs a Nazi in the throat. In fact some of the scenes were so shocking when the film was first shown, audiences walked out as the gore was just too much. Yet the movie was never charged with exaggeration as it was based on "A Thousand Shall Fall" by Hans Habe, himself a refugee from the Nazis.In reality, POW conditions of Western prisoners while not a holiday were tolerable, one character even shouts "this is not a concentration camp I have rights" but it is not in the interest of the producers to dwell on this or the Geneva Convention. The movie stirs patriotism from the minute La Marseillaise booms over the credits. Gene Kelly is effective, as a hot headed Frenchmen that refuses to bend to the rules. Hume Cronyn is suitably sleazy as a treacherous POW only wanting to serve his own interests while lead Aumont only serves as the moral voice of the story, his transgression from idealistic law student to a daring member of the Resistance not that realistic. Underused as always is Peter Lorre, who in the first few scenes is typically evil but latterly has a couple of the very few lighter moments as he smuggles contraband across the French border, making his character a little less two dimensional and it's a pity he wasn't used in more scenes.

Prosinecki The Cross of Lorraine is yet another poor propaganda piece, goose stepping stereotype nazis, ordinary peasants turned to overly patriotic resistance fighters, it's all there..Straight from the beginning you can guess how it all ends, I've read better comic books about the WW2 and the resistance than this ridiculous propaganda stunt.

Anne_Sharp If you thought World War II Hollywood war movies were all sweetness and Casablanca fans, just wait till you see this gut-wrenching little propaganda piece, which must have come out the week the censors were all in Palm Springs. Perhaps the most realistic Hollywood portrayal of life as a prisoner of the Nazis until "Schindler's List," it's also quite intelligent and extraordinarily well-played by an excellent cast. You don't know the meaning of shock until you've seen Gene Kelly spit a huge gob of real sputum onto Peter Lorre's face--and then wait till you see what comes next. It's not Captain Renault and the roulette table, dearie.