Escape from East Berlin (1962) User Reviews

Not exactly following the real events, but true to their spirit

[clivy · 8/10 · 27 August 2004]

For some reason, Turner Classic Movies here in the UK keeps showing this film at 5 or 6 in the morning. It deserves to be more widely known. As another reviewer noted, although it was made soon after the events that inspired it, it's no exploitation film. It's a solidly scripted and acted story with multidimensional characters. I wish more movies made now which are based on headlines were as thoughtful and respectful.

That said, the film's story only resembles the actual escape from East Berlin in the way that it shows 28 people fleeing from a tunnel. The real Tunnel 28 (as it was called, and this was an alternative title of the film; in a 1960s poster for it I saw in the Museum in the House at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, it was titled Tunnel 28) was built in May 1962 from a in a street in West Berlin that was close to the Wall; the tunnel ended in a basement in a house in East Berlin. It was not a family but a group of students who constructed the tunnel. They hoped to continue using the tunnel but the night after the 28 people escaped it was flooded by a burst pipe. I've read that some East Berliners hoped to reuse this tunnel during the following winter, after the water froze, but I don't know if this is true. Several people were told about it and when they came to find the tunnel's entrance they were arrested by the East German police.

Interestingly enough, the tunnel's building was financed by NBC in exchange for rights to exclusive footage of the students working on its construction and footage of refugees escaping. I've always wanted to see this documentary but I've never found a copy of it. Some of the NBC footage is featured in a recent German documentary `Der Tunnel - Die Wahre Geschichte' that interviews the builders. While filming this documentary researchers found remains of the tunnel that they dug.

I don't know why the writers of `Escape from East Berlin' felt that they had to change the story. I suppose it was to make it more like a suspense and adventure film. I'm glad that the story they wrote is sympathetic with the East Berliners' point of view and it is unsensational: it must have been a terrific temptation at the time to drive home the horrors of the situation and the horrors of Communism. It holds up very well, aside from one thing that annoyed me. How could people escape from such a narrow and meandering tunnel so quickly holding suitcases and luggage (including china)? In the actual tunnel escapes the refugees were told what the neighbour tells Erica's parents: bring nothing. Besides, carrying suitcases through the streets would have alerted the Stasi's suspicions immediately.

Freedom

[MegaSuperstar · 8/10 · 23 February 2016]

This is a film about the essential value of freedom. It tells the story of how 28 people run away from East Germany to West by digging a tunnel under the Belin wall. Filmed shortly after the wall was built, the move succeeds not only in showing the oppressive, almost claustrophobic everyday life in Eastern Germany but also in telling a story in an interesting, almost noir way. As the story begins, we see how Walter Brunner (Werner Klemperer) tries to escape from East Berlin to West by crashing his truck against the wall. We also see how Kurt Schröder (Don Murray) tries to convince him not to do it. He feels fine in east Berlin (at least that's what he says) as he has a comfortable job working as a chauffeur to an east German officer. As the movie goes on we can see how people live in East Berlin (as American point of view). I have found some interesting points in this film that appear in a quite imperceptible and yet poignantly way. People is not only afraid of being controlled or spied by the government itself but also by their neighbors. Although this is not major developed, we can clearly seen how Schröder's neighbor watches almost every movement they make, or how fear the family is when Marga (Maria Tober) speaks with two German soldiers and the family thinks she is reporting them. When the Spanish civil war ended another civil war began: neighbors reporting neighbors to be republican to obtain a gain or simply because they hated them. Human beings at their worst but also at their best, which we can see by helping others and giving them the chance to escape. Having been left apart from Hollywood industry due to communist accusations, Siodmak did not want to make a political film and that's why he made it an intrigue one as well. And he hit it. Surprisingly (or maybe not so) the film was considered a minor one and not a success nor in Western German (where it was found too soft) nor in France (where it was found too propagandistic) but it was in the U.S.A.

Risking everything for freedom

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 30 January 2020]

For many younger people today, they might have no idea what life was like during the occupation of Eastern Europe by the Soviets. Freedom was negligible and people did not have to right to live or go where they wanted. And, in Berlin, the city was divided into an East and West sector...and in the early 60s, the East German government put up a wall to deter folks from going to the West and freedom. And, to guarantee this, guard towers, machine guns and barbed wire were strung along the wall. And, many people died trying to sneak across or over or under the wall. This film concerns a group who are tunneling under the wall.

So is it any good? Yes...especially because it's a nice history lesson. My only complaint, and it's very minor, is that I didn't understand putting Don Murray in the lead...a German leading man would have made more sense. Still, it's well worth seeing.

Another brick off the wall

[dbdumonteil · 7 September 2008]

Robert Siodmak had nothing to prove when he made "Escape from East Berlin".Maybe his film ,although inspired by real facts ,looks more like fiction,but he knew what he was talking about: Driven away from his land by Goebbels after "Brennendes Geheimnis " in 1933, he took refuge in France where he made at least two classics ("Mollenard" and "Piège" ),then in America where he reached peaks of films noirs ("cry of the city" "spiral staircase" "criss cross" ....).When he returned to Germany ,he depicted his country after the war ("die Ratten" ) without indulgence.Another movie made in France ("L'Affaire Nina B") dealt with Nazi criminals .

Siomak's genius as a film noir past master can still be felt in "escape...." ,notably in the first scenes where the characters seem to be buried alive in walls of stone and barbed wire.A short prologue with a voice over tells us so: "these men and women have done nothing and they are prisoners..."Don Murray looks too American but it's not a big problem.Since 1989,the Wall of shame has fortunately become a thing of the past.Siomak's movie was one of the first thrusts.

a chauffeur plots an escape to the west

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 10 October 2009]

Based on a true story and directed by Robert Siodmak, "Escape from East Berlin" is an uneven film about a real-life military chauffeur living in East Berlin (played by Don Murray) who, with the help of family and friends, digs a tunnel in order to escape to West Berlin.

It's probable that with several story changes, "Berlin Tunnel 21," made in 1981, is based on the same true story. I found that film far more suspenseful. However, since the Siodmak film was made around the time that the wall was erected, it captures the atmosphere better. The film begins with a little bit of history, too, which would be interesting to those new to the material.

It looks as if "Escape from East Berlin" was made on a shoestring budget, as some of it seems rushed, and the subplot of Christine Kaufman, as a young woman who hides in the Schroder household and wants to escape with them, seems to have been dropped. Unless I missed it, there is no follow-up as far as her family.

Don Murray heads a German cast that includes Werner Klemperer, and the film was done on location in Berlin. Murray smartly just hints at an accent. Of course one assumes all of these people are actually speaking German.

Certainly this film captures the claustrophobia of those trapped behind the wall and the poor conditions under which they had to live. Definitely worth seeing, though for a nail-biting version of the same story, check out "Berlin Tunnel 21."

Escaping Life Behind The Berlin Wall

[sddavis63 · 6/10 · 10 September 2016]

Based on the true story of an actual escape under the Berlin Wall, "Escape Form East Berlin" is a sometimes slow moving film that does manage to capture a bit of the atmosphere of the time. It was, of course, the height of the Cold War, with the Communists having built a wall dividing the Soviet occupied East Berlin, from the rest of the city, which was occupied by the British, French and Americans. The viewer certainly gets the point that paranoia is called for in East Berlin. There are guards and soldiers everywhere, and people have to be careful who they talk to and what they talk about. Even one's own family isn't necessarily going to keep confidences. The opening scenes are of an attempt to smash a truck through the wall, and the fate of the driver leaves us with no doubt that the Communist guards were quite willing to kill to ensure that no one escaped their socialist paradise. That atmosphere was captured well, although there was surprisingly little direct political commentary, aside from a few sarcastic comments on the lips of some of the characters about the "benefits" of a planned economy.

The movie mostly revolves around the effort to build a tunnel from the basement of a house near the Wall to the West. The main character is Kurt (Don Murray) - the driver to an East German major and his wife - who befriends the sister of the man killed in the opening escape attempt, and who (not realizing that her brother is dead) wants to join him in the west. Others find out about the plan and join in, and eventually there are 28 people who want to make their way through the tunnel. The last few minutes of the movie are quite suspenseful, as East German authorities try desperately to stop the escape attempt.

This is certainly a propaganda film. That much is obvious. It's also obvious that it was made pretty quickly. The actual escape on which it's based had only taken place a few months before the movie had its debut. Aside from Murray and Werner Klemperer, most of the cast are better known for their work in European films. It's a little bit uneven, but it's also an interesting portrayal of life behind the Berlin Wall. (6/10)

The evils of an unfree state resort to desperation.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 3 March 2022]

Is a very well-made movie about attempts to escape from the eastern part of Germany, where the Communist rain, to the free Alied Society of West Germany, due to the creation of a wall to teen years after the end of WWII. I have seen other movies on this topic, most memorably the 1981 TV movie "Berlin Tunnel 21" which appears to be about a completely different escape attempt. Nevertheless, the similarities and motives are very similar, and the cast, led by Don Murray and Christine Kaufmann, is excellent. Viewers will immediately recognize Werner Klemperer who comes in halfway through the film as a rather suspicious character, but fortunately turns out to be someone desperate to flee from the terrors of communism. The talented actor and artist had made a name for himself already on film, having appeared the year before in two films about the Nazi regime and their evils, "Judgment at Nuremberg" and "Operation Eichmann". Those expecting Colonel Klink in his performance will be sadly disappointed. To think that later he would go on to play a Jewish man harassed by Nazis in a successful revival of "Cabaret" shows the versatility of his talents, especially as a singer.

Every character here gets a chance to tell their story, giving an indication of why freedom is so important to them. This could have been a little more detailed and this a bit longer, and I wouldn't have minded. "Berlin Tunnel 21" was close to two and a half hours and I was never bored. The opening scene is fraught with tension, with a young man desperately trying to drive through the wall, making it out of his car which is on fire but being shot because he is covered in barbed wire. That sets the tone for the desperation of the 28 people who managed to make it through the tunnel. The filming of the escape scene itself seems to have been quite an event, even though the scene is done at night. Made wisely in black and white, that choice for the photography definitely adds the tension that this very well-made drama needs.

timely for its time

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 15 June 2023]

It's 1962 and the Berlin Wall has recently gone up. Kurt Schröder is the driver to East German Major Eckhardt and his wife Heidi. He witnesses his friend Günther Jurgens' failed crossing. Erika Jurgens starts looking for her missing brother Günther. She is also desperate to escape. After a misunderstanding with Kurt, she assumes that her brother escaped to the West when in reality, he died in the attempt.

This is a ripped-from-the-headlines story. It's an interesting premise. I don't know any of these actors. This movie might actually have some German content. The tunnel digging is not the most compelling except for the phone line issue. In the end, it's not the most intense movie, but it has a few interesting ideas.

***1/2

[edwagreen · 9/10 · 10 September 2016]

Criticism of the film included that not enough was shown depicting the life under Communism and how the wall added to that.

Nevertheless, the film is a good one. For a change, Werner Klemperer plays a good person renting a room near where the wall is so that he can escape.

Don Murray does just fine with his German accent as a chauffeur meeting up with Christine Kaufmann after her brother is shot to death in an attempt to escape.

We see all the difficulties faced by those conspiring to flee- cutting telephone lines, little oxygen along the path, always the threat of a betrayal.

We can appreciate freedom more after viewing this film.

I thought this was an interesting as well as entertaining film. This is based on a true story, which made it compelling for me.

[jyoungren · 7/10 · 21 April 2002]

I remember seeing this film in the theatre when I was a child and always remembered it. I wish it was available on video/DVD. The black and white film highlights the starkness of life behind the wall. Although this is an old film, I think it has an important message for us to appreciate and safeguard our freedoms.

Sad

[sxct · 4/10 · 18 December 2020]

This film needed a few things to make it a very good film. First, a decent writer. Second, a decent director. Third, some decent acting. Other than that, it was pretty good. The acting was so bad that I had a hard time rooting for them. I highly recommend passing on this silly movie and get yourself a decent book to read instead.

FILM LOADED WITH GOOD SUSPENSE THAT RESISTS THE PASS OF TIME

[asalerno10 · 9/10 · 12 July 2022]

After Berlin built the wall that divided Germany into East and West. A desperate young woman tries to cross and is stopped in time by a young man who prevents her from being shot by the guards, hiding her in his house, which is located right against the wall. The family devises a daring escape plan by digging a tunnel under the wall. The risk is deadly since if they are discovered they will be shot. Some neighbors aware of the plan join in working on the construction of the tunnel or carry out distractions for the soldiers who guard it. This is a great little movie. It is clear that its budget is modest but the director manages to load it with great suspense at times distressing. The cast is perfect in their roles, the music accompanies very well and the rhythm is dynamic. A film that has perfectly withstood the passage of time and continues to be one of the best in reflecting those sadly famous moments in history.

Under and Out

[sol1218 · 7/10 · 4 August 2007]

***SPOILERS***Based on a true event "Escape from East Berlin" not only shows how desperate the people of Communist East Berlin were in willing to risk their lives in escaping from that "workers paradise" but also how some East Berliners were more then willing to turn in their fellow citizens just to ingratiate themselves with their Comminist masters.

Gunther Jurgens, Horst Janson,just had all he could take from living in the walled in city of East Berlin and made a run for it one evening in a truck busting through the just constructed Berlin Wall. Intangled in barb wire Gunther is gunned down by the East German border guards just has he made it across into allied, USA UK & French, West Berlin.

Gunther's friend Kurt Schroeder, Don Murray, who tried to prevent him from his, what turned out to be, suicide mission is contacted the next day by his younger sister Erika, Christine Kaufmann, looking for him. Erika hasn't seen Gunther since he went to work at the car pool the day before and is worried about her brother fearing that the worst happened to him. Eariler Erika was told by Gunther's fellow workers that Kurt was the last person to be seen with him the night that he disappeared.

Kurt trying to tell a very concerned Erika what happened gets as far as her brother making in across, or through, the Berlin Wall but when she becomes excited in that Gunther is alive and well he decides to just stop right there not telling her that Gunther was gunned down and killed. It takes almost the entire movie until Kurth finally told Erika the full story of what happened to her brother in him doing his best not to upset her with the honest and brutal truth about Gunther death.

The movie then concentrates in how a very reluctant Kurt comes up with the idea for digging a 200 foot long tunnel under the Berlin Wall that resulted in in one of most spectacular and successful escape attempts under, as well as across or over, that barrier to freedom. Kurt for his part liked the life he lead in Commuist East Berlin but not that he was so found of the communist regime. Having a job as East German Major Eckhardt's, Carl Schell, personal chauffeur Kurt was also fooling around with the Majors wife Heidi, Kia Fisher, as well as using the car to take girls out on dates. Kurt didn't want to give this all up by being involved in an escape attempt that even if successful didn't guarantee that he would have the same kind of swinging life-style in the west.

It's just when the tunnel was completed and the escape set for sundown that Erika's father Prof. Jurgens, Kurt Waitzmann,is contacted by one of those who planned to escape Marla, Maria Tober, and asked if he and his wife, Helma Seitz, would want to join their daughter in the impending escape attempt. This Communist butt-kissing creep instead of either joining in with the escapees or just keeping his big fat mouth shut runs like his pants are on fire to Major Eckhardt, Kurt's boss, and rats out those who are trying to escape to freedom even his daughter Erika!

With Major Eckhardt alerting the border guards as well as mustering up a squad of East German troops to stop the breakout Kurt Erika and some 25 other east Berliners make it across to the other side of the Berlin wall to freedom as the movie ends. I could only hope that that two-timing swine Prof. Jurgens got exactly what's coming to him from his beloved East German Communist bosses; an all expense paid life long vacation to a Soviet gulag in sunny Siberia with only a t-shirt and boxer shorts to keep him good and warm.

P.S Since the Berlin Wall was built in the Summer of 1961 some 200 East Germans were shot and killed by East German border guards in escape attempts with the last East Berliner being gunned down on February 6, 1989 just just eight month's before the infamous wall was finally torn down. In all the escapes across the East/West Berlin Wall, which numbered in the thousands, the one depicted in the movie "Escape from East Berlin" was by far the most famous and showed how far people would go to risk their lives for the freedom that awaited them on the other side.

Good thriller, spoiled by ending

[Caj-3 · 4/10 · 10 October 2002]

`prisoners' of communist East Germany, lead by chauffer Kurt Schroder (Don Murray), plan an escape under the Berlin wall.

Pretty good escape thriller, with good performances from Murray and Christine Kaufmann, let down really by a predictable and disappointing ending.

** out of ****

Escape from East Berlin

[GatitaFL · 3 January 2007]

I recently saw this movie on television and it was of interest to me because back in August 2006 I visited Germany for the first time and went to Berlin. I was accompanied by German friends who live in Hamburg. One of them was working in Berlin when the Wall fell in 1989.

While in Berlin I toured the Wall museum and of course visited Checkpoint Charlie. I am a baby boomer who grew up during the Cold War and I well remember the TV footage of the Wall and of people trying to escape. Escape from East Berlin may seem rather old-fashioned today but I thought it was a gritty, true-to-life type of film, even if liberties were taken with the actual events of Tunnel 28.

It was interesting that while my German friends and I drove through Berlin, they would constantly inform me "now we are in The East" or "now we are in the West"...the same thing when we were on the Autobahn...apparently Germans still refer to "East" and "West"...it will probably take a generation of two more before East and West Berlin and East and West Germany are relegated to history in the minds of the German people.

Elaine Clearwater FL

Rather small movie with unusual lead

[smithbea · 6/10 · 31 May 2021]

The very American Korean War draft-dodger/actor Don Murray is supposed to be East German? Fans of 'Hogan's Heroes' may get a kick out seeing "Col. Klink" in this drama as a good guy here. A lot of extras but not a literally big production is film.

PS Speaking of the Korean War, Kim ll Sung (of communist North Korea--affiliated with East Germany) completely started that war. Knowing that and that Murray so wrongly dodged the KW draft in the 1950's may make watching this flick hard for many.

Conventional but well constructed (the film, not the tunnel)

[Scooby-57 · 8/10 · 28 July 2000]

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS*

As the Cold War has become a part of history rather than a fact of life, films like this serve as a useful reminder of the horrors of life behind the Iron Curtain and also as a warning to a complacent modern generation not to take their freedoms for granted. The fear and oppression induced by agents of the East German state demanding of the characters, 'Your papers!!', should silence anyone who thinks Identity Cards are a 'good idea'.

This film will not be in anyone's top ten, I fear, but it is a solid and worthwhile viewing experience (I gave it an "8"). This is enhanced by the fact that the male lead has an ambiguous attitude to the west and to any concept that life could be better or that there is any real freedom over the wall. Not only that, but we are - subtly - shown why he has developed this attitude and it is reinforced by some agreeably underplayed secondary roles, such as his mother and his uncle; you always feel that uncle is going to produce some sort of surprise... and he certainly does in the end!

The female lead is a slightly weak link, but not in any sort of Sophia Coppola style disastrous way, and I do think more could have been made of her parents, particularly her mother, who added a religious dimension to the ingredients of the plot that was not adequately explored. Her father's behaviour towards the end of the film displays the corrosive effect of Communism upon the human soul brilliantly.

A more complex and enjoyable film that it at first may seem, it is an intelligent contrast to so many modern 'action' vacuums.

pretty good film on the berlin wall

[ksf-2 · 8/10 · 1 April 2020]

Made in 1962, right after the berlin wall was built. Tells the story of east-siders' attempts to escape to free market west berlin. stars Don Murray and Christine Kaufmann, as Kurt and Erika, who live near the wall. So many east berliners schemed and attempted to escape to the west, but they were usually offed by the soldiers guarding the wall. according to wiki, 100,000 people attempted to escape to the west, with about 5,000 succeeding, resulting in 200 deaths. Colonel Klink (Werner Klemperer in hogan's heroes) is in here as Brunner, and he's going to be a nosey troublemaker. Murray was nominated for making Bus Stop in 1956. Directed by Robert Siodmak. was also oscar nominated for The Killers. Siodmak himself had escaped europe just before WWII. Siodmak, Klemp, and Kaufmann were actually born in europe, but Murray was as american as you can get, born in hollywood, USA, to showbiz parents. Film is quite good, if a little overdone at times. it would be another 25 years before that wall came down.

Is this history now?

[tonyro · 21 February 2002]

I watched the Berlin Wall come down in 1989. This film brings back some haunting memories. The despair of people realizing that they are trapped in the cage called East Berlin. And what we know about the Stasi--the East German secret police--makes me cringe realizing how everybody was spied upon.

Yes, the movie has a happy ending. But, while 28 people found freedom through the tunnel, think of those who lived out their days behind the wall.