Berlin Correspondent (1942) User Reviews

entertaining propaganda film

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 24 June 2005]

Dana Andrews plays an American radio correspondent whose broadcasts are suspected of concealing codes containing war information. Andrews becomes embroiled with a young Nazi sympathizer, played by Virginia Gilmore, whose father is an ardent anti-Nazi, and whose fiancée (Martin Kosleck) is a Nazi colonel. Andrews manages to pull off some rather outrageous stunts during this film but nevertheless, it's an entertaining, if somewhat typical propaganda film of the era.

Virginia Gilmore is very attractive, while Kosleck, as usual, is mean as dirt as the Nazi. In real life, of course, he got out of Germany just in time, as he was tried in absentia by the Nazis and sentenced to death. He enjoyed playing members of the Third Reich, as he loathed them for what they did to Germany.

Foreign correspondent

[jotix100 · 6/10 · 26 July 2005]

This 1942 film by 20th Century Fox, was shown the other night. It is pure propaganda, as many others of the period, when Hollywood was seen as the right medium to advance the cause for the war. Eugene Forde directed this mildly engrossing movie that although flawed has some surprising good moments.

Best of all is Bill Roberts, our man in Berlin, who transmits his radio broadcast with his own slant, telling what was really happening in spite of the censure he must go through. There is intrigue all over the place, but our hero is wiser than the people that are trying to get him. The plot involves some spying from a woman that Bill doesn't suspect is the daughter of his contact in Berlin, who sees the light when she learns her father has been imprisoned because of his illegal activities.

Dana Andrews is good as Bill Roberts, the American correspondent in Berlin. Virginia Gilmore is his love interest. Martin Koleck is perfect as Capt. von Rau, and Mona Maris does a good job portraying the bad Nazi girl.

The film is entertaining and while it doesn't break new ground, will keep the viewer entertained because of the good direction from Mr. Forde.

Sieg Heil!

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 15 April 2015]

Whew. What a piece of period work. It's as if you'd been stuffed into a time capsule that was otherwise filled with unpleasant circumstances.

Dana Andrews is Bill Roberts -- the kind of Hollywood hero name that is so bland it almost fades as soon as it's printed -- a Berlin radio correspondent for an American newspaper. His reports on the ongoing war are carefully scrutinized by the Nazi censors but they contain coded messages to his newspaper so that genuine information gets through. The Gestapo chief, Martin Kosleck, realizes that something is going on but he can't figure out what it is. He calls in the censors who can't explain it. "GET OUT!", he roars, after ordering them to put on their uniforms because they're being sent to the front -- "Dzah Russian front!" A trembling detective who was supposed to tail Andrews but lost him during an air raid, is lucky to escape from Kosleck's office with his skin intact. Thereafter the detective provides some comic moments, like those of Inspector Clouseau in the "Pink Panther" movies.

Martin Kosleck is the epitome of Nazihood. Kosleck hated Hitler and left Germany in the 30s. In Hollywood, he wound up playing Goebbels five times and innumerable other Nazi types. Well, he fitted the role. He had a piercing stare and sharp features, evoking some kind of fierce rodent, maybe a ferret or wolverine. And he looked splendid in a Gestapo uniform. I'm convinced that one of the reasons behind Hitler's early charisma was the tailor who designed German uniforms. Whoever it was, he outdid himself with the Gestapo and the SS. Black boots, black uniforms, silver decorations and braids, and a red-white-black swastika armband. I mean -- impressive, right? Every day is Hallowe'en.

As an adolescent I was attracted to the Marine Corps because of their snazzy dress uniforms. What kind of uniform would you prefer to wear: a garbage man's or a Zouave's?

The story is rather twisted, as spy stories tend to be. If Andrews is the good guy and Kosleck is the heavy, Virginia Gilmore is in the middle, in more ways than one. It's a complex role. She's a competent actress and attractive to boot. Don't know what happened to her. But, in the scene in which the Gestapo burst into her room, tugging Andrews along as a prisoner, and put Gilmore's father under arrest, Andrews stops them and claims Gilmore's father is innocent and that he, Andrews, will testify to it in court at the trial. "Court? Trial? My dear man, this is Germany." Kosleck delivers the line smoothly, effortlessly. All the dialog follows such conventions.

Sig Rumann has a delicious part as a psychiatrist in charge of a hospital for the insane and otherwise unfit. He's the same pompous buffoon he is in all of his other films. He's extremely amusing. The guy just can't help it. The pilot who appears at the climax is Henry Rowland, born Wolfram Von Bock in Omaha, Nebraska. He probably played as many Germans as Kosleck did. He was an American but looked as German as he in fact was. Unfortunately for Rowland he had the face of an enlisted man, not an officer. There seems to have been a whole colony of German-Americans around Omaha in those days: Nick Nolte, Paula Zahn. Fred Astaire was born there under the name Frederick Austerlitz.

Anyway, at one point or another, every one of the good folks are in trouble. There are intrigues and betrayals and last-minute escapes. But not to worry. It's one of those movies that ends with the loving couple flying off to freedom while the ferret is up to his neck in tribulations.

It's an easy way of passing the time, like looking through an album of old photos.

Nifty little World War II programmer...taut, exciting, if improbable...

[Doylenf · 7/10 · 18 May 2005]

BERLIN CORRESPONDENT was one of many propaganda films that entertained World War II audiences in 1942. When it played the local theater houses in the New York area during the age of double features, BAMBI was on the top half of the bill with the DANA ANDREWS film second on the bill.

It's got a really improbable storyline but if you can accept the fact that this is "just a movie" and made for propaganda escapist fare in the early '40s, it's well worth watching.

Dana Andrews is excellent as an American reporter who risks his life so that his sweetheart and her professor father can escape the Nazis. By the time the story gets to the concentration camp scenes near the end, it has compiled a number of improbable twists and turns. Nevertheless, it's briskly paced, well acted and photographed in crisp B&W style that results in good entertainment. The story moves to a fast-moving climax when Dana's planned escape goes amok.

Martin Kosleck makes the most of his Nazi role, the kind he played often in these wartime dramas, and Virginia Gilmore is pleasantly appealing in the leading femme role. Mona Maris seemed to specialize in playing bad girl spies in these kind of stories.

Taut, tense and exciting, flawed only by some improbabilities in the script.

A rather slight wartime propaganda film.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 5 October 2017]

"Berlin Correspondent" is set just before the United States entered World War II. Bill Roberts (Dana Andrews) is an American news correspondent and it's pretty obvious he hates Nazi Germany, which is where he's been stationed. The Nazis heavily censor his news broadcasts...yet somehow information about the Nazis seems to sneak out...and they suspect Bill is up to something. Eventually they learn his secret but instead of just being tossed out of the country, the Nazis have other plans for him.

Despite having Dana Andrews in the picture, this is a pretty unremarkable film. The Nazis are almost all stupid as well as evil...and Bill is able to trick them again and again because of this. If only the Nazis were this dumb! Overall, a decent time- passer but not much more. And, by the way, oddly the Germans almost all sound just like Americans!

Low Budget War Film

[carrps · 6/10 · 3 September 2022]

This was actually entertaining. The acting was quite good, and there was suspense and humor. The pace was just right -- not too frenetic, but it moved right along. The low budget was betrayed mostly by the sets. The concentration camp was obviously left over from a Western cowboy movie set. Log cabin watch towers? Also, the entrance to the camp looked like something from "F Troop." When a plane takes off from a supposed Nazi airfield, the buildings around the field look suspiciously like the sound stages on movie lots.

I also noticed the Hans Gruber name -- it was actually the name of the stamp shop being used by the hero and the heroine's father to pass secret information.

I actually liked that the Nazi colonel's secretary (who was secretly in love him) was not the stereotype that I expected, and her role was not what I expected either.

Decent Early War Flagwaver

[gordonl56 · 6/10 · 24 March 2016]

BERLIN CORRESPONDENT 1942

This a 20th Century Fox film is another of the wartime flag wavers that flooded the theatres during World War Two. This stars, Dana Andrews, Virginia Gilmore, Mona Maris, Erwin Kaiser, Martin Kosleck, Sig Ruman and Henry Rowland.

It starts in November 1941, Andrews, an American radio correspondent, sends out valuable espionage information during his daily broadcasts from Berlin. This is annoying the Nazi types to no end. They want to know where he is getting this info and plug the leak.

Gestapo colonel Martin Kosleck (in another of his great Nazi roles) assigns his best agents to follow the man. Andrews though always manages to give the slip to his shadows. He then meets with his German contact for the German intelligence information.

Kosleck has finally reached the end of his tether with Andrews evading his tails. He assigns his girlfriend, Virginia Gilmore to keep tabs of the American. This she does rather quickly by posing as a woman in distress. Andrews, being ever so gallant, helps Gilmore cover a café bill. The smooth talking Yank soon has a date lined up with the pretty Gilmore. Of course the man has no idea this is all a plan laid out by Gestapo man, Kosleck.

Now the plot thickens as Andrews' underground contact turns out to be Miss Gilmore's father. The man, Erwin Kaiser, hates the Nazis and wants to help in their defeat. The info he gathers is from Gilmore who thinks it is all just table talk she got from boyfriend Kosleck.

Anyways, after a couple of dates with Andrews, Gilmore discovers that the information he receives is written in invisible ink on stamps. He buys these from a local shop where Kaiser happens to frequent. The Nazis raid the place and soon are pounding on Kaiser's and daughter Gilmore's door. Gilmore now realizes that she has inadvertently turned her father in. She now only wants to help her father.

As the Gestapo burst in, Kaiser starts yelling at Gilmore calling her a cow for turning him in. This causes Kosleck and the Gestapo swine to believe that Gilmore is still a loyal Nazi. (Seen this plot twist at least a dozen times in various films)

Kosleck soon has Kaiser in a cell receiving some "gentle" questioning. Kaiser refuses to talk and is soon set to an insane sanatorium. There he will of course be found dead of some accident or some such thing. Gilmore, at wits end, seeks out Andrews to help save her father. Now there is a whole series of somewhat over the top heroics by Andrews. He dresses up like a German officer and visits the sanatorium. He needless to say soon springs the old man and smuggles him over the border for some time with the Swiss.

Matters take a turn for the worse for Andrews as December 7th has rolled around. Germany stands with her Japanese ally and Andrews is grabbed up and tossed into a concentration camp. There are some more bits of daring do and the likes before Andrews and Gilmore are winging it out of the country in a stolen aircraft.

This is a typical early war propaganda flag waver with the dashing hero getting away from the enemy. (this time with a girl) With only a 70 minute runtime it moves along quickly enough. The German's being played as complete morons in every film of this type is starting to get a bit long in the tooth. One starts to wonder how they ever took over all of Europe. It is still worth a look as a decent example of the genre.

The film was directed by regular Charlie Chan helmsman, Eugene Forde. One time Oscar nominated, Virgil Miller is the director of photography.

Some will recall Sig Ruman from his role in STALAG 17 as the German guard, Sgt Schulz.

A nice little war time quickie from Fox...

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 4 September 2022]

... with Dana Andrews in an early role, a couple of years before Laura.

American correspondent Bill Roberts (Dana Andrews) broadcasts live from Berlin in late 1941 before Pearl Harbor. You'd wonder WHY he does this since he has about three or four Germans huddled around him every time he broadcasts to make sure he says only positive happy sappy things about Germany. And then you find out why he doesn't just quit and go home. He has been discovering German secrets and inserting those secrets in code inside of his broadcasts. In America these secrets are translated and sent on to our allies in Europe.

The Germans know he is doing this, and they don't just kick him out of the country because they want to know his source. They've tried numerous detectives and PI's but Bill has spotted them all. So a colonel in the SS gets his girlfriend in the Gestapo to act as a damsel in distress in a restaurant so that Bill can ride to her rescue, and then she can strike up a friendship with Bill and worm her way into his confidence. It works all too well - he is a bit smitten - and she gets the info. This leads the Gestapo back to - her own father! And she was the one telling him the secrets! Yikes!

This is all disclosed early on, so I'm not really spoiling it for you. This was not one of Fox's A list productions AND it has that typical WWII era production preachy shrillness to it, but it does have a few points to recommend it. For one, I don't think I've seen an impressionist/voice actor or a Gestapo love triangle inserted into such a film before as significant plot points.

Also, as much as American films played up the evil side of the Third Reich even early in the war, they were still quite uninformed at this point. They knew there were concentration camps where German political prisoners were kept, but they gave the Nazis too much credit for compassion. The camp shown here has the prisoners looking well fed and looks no worse than a deep south prison of the era that employed chain gangs - although I'm not saying that was not pretty bad.

The end is rather interesting in that it is reminiscent of Casablanca in several ways, down to the irony and a pseudo "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" kind of moment. The thing is, this film came first!

I'd recommend it. It is not long enough to get tiresome, is original in spots, and you get to see Dana Andrews in an early role.

Get this Idyot out of Here!

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 17 April 2005]

**SPOILERS** It's late November 1941 and things haven't been going too well for the Nazis as of late. Their big offensives in both Russia and North Africa have stalled and Berlin is being bombed by what looks like German Stuka dive-bombers who must have gone some 500 miles off course from the Eastern Front to do it.

American newspaper correspondent Bill Roberts, Dana Andrews,is giving his usual nightly news report from Berlin back to the USA, which has been heavily censored by the Gestapo,that somehow is telling his people back home whats really happening in the war. Bill is using coded words that the Gestapo can't pick up to give the info that the Gestapo want to prevent the world from knowing. Just where is Bill getting this very vital and secret information?

Col. Karl Von Rau, Martin Kosleck, a top honcho in the German intelligence Service is having fits about this matter and is sending out agents to spy on Bill to find out who's giving him this top secret data. The agents that Von Rau sends out are about as effective as a water pistol is to stopping a five alarm fire.

Getting his pretty intelligence analyst Karen Hauen, Virginia Gilmore, on Bill's tail she gets him off his guard, with Bill trying to impress her with his famous spaghetti sauce, at his hotel room. Karen finds out that Bill gets the important info from a stamp dealer in the city. It later turns out that this person is not a stamp dealer but a customer who also happens to be Karen's father Rudolph Hauen, Erwin Kaiser.

Rudolf had just about had it with the Nazi regime and wants to do everything in his power to undermine it. With his daughter now working for German Intellengence Rudolf in the perfect spot to get top secret information about the German Armys victories and defeats and used that information to feed it to Bill Roberts and thus to the free world. But what the old geezer didn't realize is that he was putting himself and, even worse, his daughter Karen in mortal danger.

Getting arrested by the Gestapo and thrown into the Grundorf Asylum, where the only way that one can come out of is in a wooden box, Karen franticly goes to Bill Roberts, who she just informed on, for help. Typical WWII propaganda movie with the American reporter having the beautiful German Fraulein fall heads over heels for him and help him not only escape from the hated Nazis but also go along with him.

The "handsome" and "dashing" Col. Von Rau is done in by his private secretary Carla, Mona Maris, who feels that he's two timing her by him planning to marry Karen! This caused the outraged Clara to turn him over to the Gestapo for special treatment. Lover-boy Von Rau tries to play both women to his advantage but gets burned when his diabolical plan to have Karen's lover Bill Roberts, who earlier helped her father escape Nazi Germany, escape only to have him killed and his death covered up by electrocuting him on the camps barb wire. Von Rau is stymied when Bill knocks out the Nazi guard who was to pull the lever and thus Von Rau is arrested and eventually shot for being responsible for Bill's escape.

Commindeering a plane Bill & Karen take off for natural Switzerland and then finding to their surprise that the planes Nazi pilot, Henry Rowland, joined in with them in their escape. What surprised me even more was that there wasn't a single German combat plane, not to mention the very effective German army anti-aircraft artillery, from the vaunted and powerful Luftwaffe around to stop them.

Too accurate for Nazi taste

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 5 November 2017]

What Clark Gable was doing the Soviets in Comrade X Dana Andrews is doing to the Nazis in Berlin Correspondent. Of course Comrade X was a far better film.

This quickie from 20th Century Fox takes place starting in the summer of 1941 when the Nazis broke their pact with the Soviet Union and invaded. Dana Andrews is broadcasting to America with strict supervision, but still manages to get news in print to his home paper in New York that is too accurate for Nazi taste. This has the Gestapo most concerned and Martin Kosleck sends in his own girlfriend Virginia Gilmore to find out.

What she does find out hits home because her father Erwin Kalser is one of the helpers. She does a 180 degree spin and falls for Andrews and the rest is for you to watch.

This is one of those films from the WW2 years which makes the Nazis out to be ludicrously stupid. They weren't all Wilhelm Klink's or they would not have done what they did. You have to marvel at what our concept of a concentration camp was before they were liberated and how easily Andrews escapes.

Sig Ruman and Kurt Katch are also stupid Nazis in this film and Mona Maris is a jealous Nazi girl who has her own war with Gilmore to fight.

Berlin Correspondent is a mediocre remnant of World War II days and hardly likely to be in the Dana Andrews top 10.

Devent war and concentration camp entertainment

[clanciai · 8/10 · 27 September 2020]

Very mucjh reminding of similar rants like "Comrade X" and Lubitsch's "To Be or Not to Be" and other similar comedies who all compete in turning all established officials into astronomic dunderheads and ridiculous idiots, and here is even Sig Ruman to complete the Nazi haberdashery getting out of his pants. All you miss here is a caricature of Hitler also. But Dana Andrews is good with a moustache, almost like Douglas Fairbanks Jr, and Virginia Gilmore is charming and sexy enough, even for a German spy. The plot is ridiculously absurd to start with, but when it comes to her father it gets more interesting, and there is even some inside views of a concentration camp with its atrocities - fairly iunknown to Amerticans in 1942. In brief, this is qualified entertainment, there are some pleasant surprises towards the end as the plots thicken up, and of course it all ends well for everyone except for Germany, - as everyone knows. It is better than "Comrade X" but can not compete with "To Be or Not to Bet" or with "Pimpernel Smith".

Good Early Dana Andrews picture while Martin Kosleck Steals the Show

[TheFearmakers · 7/10 · 19 January 2018]

Martin Kosleck est known or recognized by movie fans as the red-herring windmill resident replacement in Alfred Hitchcock's classic, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, and unlike that memorable, sparse yet important cameo, he's pretty much the entire vehicle for this particular CORRESPONDENT made two years later, only now we're on his home turf during, not before, The Second World War: BERLIN, Germany against American Dana Andrews, with a pencil thin mustache usually given to Silent Movie villains, playing the most intrepid role by mere introduction...

A New York broadcast telling America the names of all overseas Correspondents, ranging from men working in England to Holland, which sound like soft jobs as opposed to where Dana's Bill Roberts works, reading what seems like German-written propaganda about their side of things, but with secret coded adjectives, he gets through to his newspaper back home, and, despite acting permanently teflon, like some kind of one-dimensional comic book hero (not one of Andrews' best roles), with the severity of his job, the attitude fits: especially in a feel-good wartime programmer.

She doesn't know anything, and stuck in a cold, heartless romance with intense Nazi Captain von Rau, played by Martin Kosleck, she's actually in the most danger since he's the scariest character. But like all good actors, there's a vulnerable side that sheds wan light through an otherwise steely countenance. With his severe looks, though, it's not easy to pull off being all that friendly.

Kosleck, who'd play sinister Germans throughout his career, owns the picture for more than his narrowed-eyes wielding an intense, soulless reflection of The Furor's agenda. While Andrews' story revs up, taking verbal shots at The Third Reich in an obvious attempt to make Hitler seem like the type of clown Charlie Chaplin portrayed in THE GREAT DICTATOR, the sole heavy, by standing firm and playing the role with unbridled fervor while still remaining alert and controlled, is the centerpiece - even as Andrews eventually becomes a more physical hero, and gets deeper into trouble - from a last minute race-against-time attempt to save his girl involving a psycho ward and then his own hopeful prison escape - our edgy German spotlight is the reason that anyone fears anything at all: In short, Kosleck has the job of embodying the entire Nazi Party.

Spoiler: Escape by Plane

[silogram-1 · 26 April 2005]

Goof: When the plane takes off it appears to be a Lockheed Electra (twin horizontal stabilizers) and when it lands, it appears to be a Douglas DC-3 (single horizontal stabilizer). As sol1218 said, there are other aeronautical goofs in the story. Berlin is being dive bombed. USA and Britain had no dive bombers in European theatre.

The Luftwaffe knows that the American is taking off in a stolen plane, as sol1218 said, and yet their slow flying transport plane is not chased and shot down by any Lufwaffe fighters.

I am an Electrical Engineer. The electrocution on the barbed wire is most unrealistic, all the wires are at the same potential, yet the escaping prisoner gets the current from hand to hand. In fact, he would be electrocuted when his feet are on the ground and he first touches the wire.

Improbable plot, heavy handed propaganda, leading lady lisps

[oldmovieman · 3/10 · 11 August 2005]

Ouch! This wildly implausible story finds Dana Andrews as an American radio correspondent broadcasting censored news back to America shortly before America's entry into WWII. Andrews, however, is getting secret information about military failures of the German army and covertly incorporating them into his newscasts. The secret info is then published in the American newspaper that has the code, much to the Germans embarrassment. The contrived plot has a Gestapo officer use his fiancée to cozy up to Andrews and learn the source of his information. She is almost immediately successful in solving the mystery (it was that easy?) and informing her fiancé. But the joke's on her when Andrews' source turns out to be her father and he's tortured and sent to an asylum for execution. Incredibly, the Gestapo doesn't execute or even arrest Andrews as a spy but lets him go about his business. Not to fear, Andrews saves the day. How? He just impersonates a Nazi psychiatrist (complete with colonel's uniform), visits the asylum, arranges the father's escape, and ships him to Switzerland. How does he solve the problem of the border crossing? Easy. He gives the father his passport, which he had altered by a friend so the 60 year old father would pass as Andrews. The plot gets far worse from here but it's too much too describe. As for the tone of the movie, the treatment of the Germans is so cartoonish and the dialogue so over the top that you'll cringe. Yes, this was a propaganda film but a little more subtlety would have gone a long way. There is, however, one reason to watch this horror: Virginia Gilmore as the Gestapo officer's fiancée. First, she is gorgeous. Second, she has the worst lisp of any leading lady I've ever seen on film. Every "this" becomes "thith." It's really amazing she got any roles at all.

Propaganda WW2 Style

[bloan2112 · 7/10 · 9 October 2022]

Having been subjected to MSM propaganda recently throughout Covid and knowing it's a tool of government often used, it's interesting to view this early attempt by America to turn them against Germany.

This movie follows a correspondent played by Dana Andrews stuck in Berlin and allegedly passing secret information over the airwaves while being supervised about Germany's war effort back home.

It's an entertaining ride full of Inadvertent comedy.

The cliched Nazi villains are pathetic, none of who seem to have a clue how he passes the information.

The main SS villain had me laughing with his insults.

Most Germans were all in by 1941 and that didn't end well for them.

Fun movie with a predictable ending.

Entertaining propoganda example

[tonypeacock-1 · 6/10 · 7 September 2023]

You will find this little bit of propoganda typical of the period mid Second World War just before the U. S. got drawn into the conflict by the Pearl Harbor attack quite enjoyable.

Very short running time but it has all the tropes of the propganda films. The villainous Nazi Gestapo being at the forefrunt here.

Dana Andrews delivers a gusto performance as the American Berlin 'Correspondent' who is revealing secrets from Germany over coded radio broadcasts.

He falls for a Gestapo agent who tries to investigate if he is the source of the leak in the process dragging her father into the Gestapo investigation with deadly consequences.

The film keeps you engrossed throughout and has some thrilling scenes more becoming of a higher budget film.

not supposed to be a comedy, but...

[runtexas · 6/10 · 23 August 2022]

We caught this movie on TCM. At first it struck us as having highly improbable scenes for Nazi Germany. But then, it struck us as being like the 1960s sitcom, "Hogan's Heroes". I can't help wondering if this movie inspired the makers of "Hogan's Heroes"?

Propaganda at its silliest.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 8 April 2014]

Two years after being a "Foreign Correspondent" and really making an impact (leading to stardom), Dana Andrews moved To Berlin, where as a different character, he is forced to speak in code to get the truth out as Germany takes over much of Europe. Nazi Martin Kosleck is determined to silence the truth and has Andrews followed. However, the dunce trailing Andrews is constantly recognized through his attempts at disguise so Kosleck changes his methods to utilize a female instead. His fiancée Virginia Gilmore gets the job and uses Andrews to get her objector father out of a mental asylum. Kosleck's jealous secretary (Mona Maris) plots to keep Kosleck and Gilmore from marrying, and vindictively sets up everybody's downfall.

Almost comedic with its serious plot, this even has a bit of a "Prisoner of Zenda" subplot thrown in with a German actor utilizing Andrews' voice on radio while Andrews lingers in a concentration camp. Sig Ruman is the head of the mental institution Andrews briefly infiltrates (disguised as a Nazi psychiatrist) and is an exact duplicate of "Hogan Heroes"' Colonel Klink. But this is the world of the Nazis where the plot indicates that even a wisecrack about the Fuhrer can get one killed or shipped off to the Russian front. There's even a character who dramatically declares "I know nothing!", Sgt. Schultz's oft-quoted line from "Hogan's Heroes" which makes you wonder if the creators of that show viewed this movie then decided to go ahead with the premise of that often skewered sitcom.

While there were comedies which poked fun at the rigidness of the Nazis and even the appearance of Hitler, there's nothing structurally comedic about this plot to make it funny, an insult to the viewers intelligence. We know that when Chaplin, Jack Benny or Hal Roach make a film with a Hitler type character there, they are going for parody, but in the case of an A studio like 20th Century Fox thinking that burlesquing the extremely dangerous Nazis during the war shows their lack of trust in the brains of their viewing audience. This seems like something that one of the poverty row studios like Monogram or PRC might produce. The laughs that do come are there because the viewer can't help but laugh at the film maker's naiveté in thinking that the audiences didn't find the whole thing absurd...and insulting.

Berlin Correspondent- Daffy *1/2

[edwagreen · 4/10 · 20 February 2010]

Ridiculous film here. Dana Andrews was miscast in 1945's "State Fair," and is a victim of unbelievably bad writing and some poor taste exhibited in this very stupid film. Thank the Lord for Andrews that 1946's "The Best Years of Our Lives" allowed him to display his great acting talents.

This film is ludicrous at best. The escape scene of the heroine's father becomes comedy at its worst. Sig Ruman and Andrews are literally caught with their pants down. Ruman's remark that Hitler needs a psychiatrist and that by the Nazis killing all the insane people, will leave Germany as a sane country is insensitive to the say the least. Hitler needed more than a psychiatrist. It is called a bullet between the eyes. Am sure we would have loads of volunteers to carry this out.

The movie also brings out that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned-even a dedicated Nazi woman.

Notice that the Nazi woman sent to spy on reporter Andrews is as Nazi as they come, but how she changes when it's determined that her father is part of the anti-Nazi spy ring. Unrealistic. Obedient Nazis were taught to turn in their own parents if necessary.