The Longest Day

1962, bw (8.0*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon film #13
Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl F. Zanuck (uncredited)
Annakin did the British exteriors, Marton the American exteriors, Wicki the German episodes.

A journalistic, little embellished story of D-Day, beginning with the build up, and the delays caused by weather, the men anxiously rocking with the waves below decks, worried about how much German force will be waiting for them at Normandy. We proceed from waiting troops, to the overnight paratrooper drop that actually began the assault.

This all-star cast is more of a Hollywood who's who than a tight narrative ensemble, but by shooting in black and white the producers tried to give this filmed story of D-Day a documentary look and feel, so in that regard having stars in every part negates the effect, but it's still a rewarding war film overall. From Cornelius Ryan's best-seller, and it has that feel as well.

The cast has some of the biggest names available at the time: John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, Peter Lawford, Robert Ryan, Sal Mineo, Eddie Albert, Mel Ferrer, with Curt Jurgens and Gert Frobe in the German scenes. Most have little to do however, other than ask questions about maps, or bark out orders. The film is made by the special effects, as it truly does look like "every ship in the world" off the coast of Normany when the invasion begins, as one German observer radios to Berlin.

won 7 awards, 2 Oscars (cinematography, special effects) out of 13 nominations

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The Night Porter

Liliani Cavani, Italy, 1974 (8.3*)
Il portiere di notte
[in English]
Memorial Day War-a-thon #5

This film deals with the dark side of human sexuality, one which grew out of a twisted relationship during World War II, so it's also a metaphor for the dark side of society itself. People may appear normal on the outside, but..

Charlotte Rampling plays Lucia, a concentration camp survivor who, twelve years later and now married to a famous orchestra conductor, meets her former captor Maximilian by chance, when they check into a Viennese hotel he is the night porter there. Dirk Bogarde turns in one of his most riveting performances as the night clerk, a man nonchalant and passionless on the outside, but who releases a torrent of sadomasochistic eroticicm when alone with Charlotte, as she is all too willing to continue what was started in the camp, when she was the teenage victim of s/m sex experiments with Bogarde. Apparently her present life, even though affluent and safe, isn't as passionate nor as fulfilling as her prior one.

This is the most interesting aspect of the story, the long term psychological ramifications of those surviving traumatic experiences, and those who become bonded to their captors. In one regard, since this relationship became necessary for Maximilian as well, it kept Lucia alive through the war, so he saved her life, even if as his sex slave. Bogarde still meets with other former camp officers in the present day, to discuss surviving in the present society and remaining anonymous, so their shared memories remain alive through the group.

Caviani did a good job of making all this complexity understandable, if not sympathetic. The films weakness is not making us care what happens to these characters; they seem self-absorbed and uninterested in normal society, likely as a result of surviving the camp. The films strong point is that it shows how dysfunctional society itself can be in creating people like this, how it's possible for personal demons to prevent people from change, and how their unchecked obsessions can consume the soul.

Some dismissed this as sensationalism, I found it a chilling expose of the dark side of the Nazi psyche, the need to control people totally, only deriving pleasure from inflicting pain.This film made Rampling an international star, but it wasn't until the recent Under the Sand that she lived up to her dramatic potential. In this film, a woman's longtime husband swims in the ocean while she naps on the beach, and after awakening finds that her husband has disappeared.

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Enemy at the Gates

Jean-Jacques Annaud, 2001 (7.8*)
U.S.-UK-Germany-Ireland
Memorial Day War-athon #3
Enemy at the Gates is a World War II story about the battle of Stalingrad. In the biggest battle of the war, German troops got bogged down in their Russian invasion at this city, and along with Russians, it's estimated that over 2 million troops died in a little over a year, as the war became a long stalemate, while winter tooks it's toll on the Germans (the Russian soldiers were prepared, and wore mink).

The battle became a city battle, block by block, and eventually became nothing more than a war of snipers. Those foolish enough to show their head got a bullet through the helmet. Each side calls on better and better snipers until they are down to the best teachers from each side, two legendary snipers, one German, one Russian. This is based on a true story, in fact, Russian Sergeant Vassili Zaitsev was a real person whose sniper rifle is still an exhibit in a Russian museum.

An excellent cast sells what would have been just another war film. Jude Law and Joseph Fiennes star as rival snipers, Ed Harris is a scary, high-ranking Nazi, and Rachel Weisz is a Red Army sergeant, Tania (a real historical war hero of Russia). Some Russians online say it's historically inaccurate in order to be a more sellable film, that's it's no longer historic information. If you can put that aside, it's a riveting war film, just nothing too deep.

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Black Book

Paul Verhoeven, 2006, Holland (8.8*)

Excellent true story of a Jewish double agent, who went so far as to die all her hair blonde so she could literally sleep with the Nazi enemy in World War II Holland. She did this after nearly escaping, only to have Germans kill nearly everyone on aboat while she escapes, and being rescued by the underground. Carice von Houten plays a singer who infiltrates local Gestapo headquarters by seducing officers.


This is a strong storyline, with some excellent war sequences, a modernized version of an early 40's war film. This film was largely ignored in the U.S., grossing just 4m, but has a rating of 8 at IMDB, making it borderline top 250 all-time, and won 11 awards overall, including best film at the Netherlands film festival.


Verhoeven excels at films about WW2 Holland, as his breakthrough international success was Soldier of Orange, which made Rutger Hauer an international star.

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The Shop On Main St.

Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, 1965, Czechoslovakia, bw (9.0*)
Best Foreign Film (AA)
A terrific film on a little known subject, the 'Aryanization' of Jewish businesses in Europe, in which the Nazis sent in those of pure, Aryan race to basically take over Jewish businesses when Jews were banned from owning or operating any. This story takes place in occupied Czechoslavakia, when an Aryan male is sent to run a tiny button shop on Main St. in a small Czech village.

Ida Kaminska plays the shopkeeper, in a performance that garnered an Oscar® nomination for lead actress; it's one of the more believable in Oscar® history as she's so wonderfully understated that you never suspect she's acting. Jozef Króner is the man (Tono) sent to take over her shop, and he's in for a real education, as he discovers a huge Jewish support network that actually pays salary to small shopkeepers who would be out of business otherwise.

This is an eye-opening story that looks at anti-Semitism literally at street level, how it affects the daily lives of small villagers. It's an important film in the pantheon of holocaust films, and one of the best films to ever come out of the Czech Republic. The film won four awards for foreign language film, including the Oscar® in 1966.

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Days of Glory

aka Indigènes (Algeria-Morocco-France-Belgium)
Rachid Bouchareb, 2006 (9.3*)A ten-year project for director Bouchareb, who had to research this story by spending a year interviewing survivors of WW2, then around 80-90 years old who fought for Algeria and Morocco in liberating France, which were around 200,000 in total number. He then completely story boarded the film with over 900 drawings.

The story follows four soldiers in one unit from Algeria, and their sergeant from Morocco, beginning with the invasion of Italy and continuing through France. The acting is uniformly superb, and all the male lead actors won best actor at Cannes as a group. The action is at the level of Patton and Saving Private Ryan, perhaps a bit more Hollywood looking, but then it was made for just around 15 million - here it would have been a 50m epic from Spielberg or Eastwood and been nominated for 8 Oscars. Personally, I think the acting is better than either of these American films, far more realistic and credible overall; there are no hams in this group because there are no stars. (Of course, Scott needed to be over the top because George Patton was also, certainly 'bigger than life' compared to the unheralded infantryman.)

In actuality, it grossed only 300k in the U.S., which means it was seen by less than 100,000 people. That's a crime for a war film this good. Perhaps its because a large part of the story's intent is to enlighten us to the untold story of North African fighters who were largely ignored by history and the French government. There are also issues of prejudice between the Moroccans and Algerians, and of course major ones between the French and Algerian.

The war scenes are realistic and intense without excessive gore, and the overall pace held my interest until the end; it's a very finely crafted film. Overall, this is a film you won't easily forget. It should have won more awards worldwide, but did get nominated for 9 Cesars in France, and a foreign language Oscar® here, representing Algeria. [It was a tough year for that category, see my note below] Winner of 6 awards out of 18 nominations.

Note: the foreign language film academy award that (in 2007 for 2006 films) was a far better group than the main best picture films. The winner, The Lives of Others, is a great film about espionage of ordinary citizens. After the Wedding is my favorite Danish film, an all-time top 50 for me. Water, from Indian director Deepa Mehta, is her best to me, also one of my favorites of the decade. The only one I didn't like was a double Oscar® winner (Special effects, Makeup) and was favored here, Pan's Labyrinth. It's story wasn't nearly as compelling as the other four, which are all classics of their genres. I would have understood any of these winning except Pan's. Voters in this category have to attend pre-Oscar® screenings of all five in order to vote, so there's a more fair assessment than any other category. I agree with the choice, and Lives of Others is one of only 5 films in history to win both the US and British academy awards for foreign language film.

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Downfall

Oliver Hirschbiegal, Germany, 2004 (8.5*)
Truly one of the best WW2 films, based on the book by Hitler's last private secretary, Downfall tells of the last days of the Third Reich within Hitler's bunker. Alexandra Maria Lara (Youth Without Youth, Control, The Reader), a Romanian actress whose family moved to Germany is Trudl Junge, the woman who survived those final days in order to bring this story to the world.

Bruno Ganz is excellent as Hitler, without being a parody or impressionist, but capturing the moody personality in his darkest days. There are some side stories just as interesting, such as one of a kid of 12 who takes out invading Soviet tanks in the streets of Berlin with the Russian invention of Molotov coctails. He becomes one of the last heroes given medals by Hitler outside the bunker.

This would now make a good companion film to Judgment at Nuremberg, which placed those surviving war criminals on trial, those who didn't commit suicide along with Hitler and others who didn't want to face a world without their beloved Fuehrer.

This is now one of the highest ranked war films at IMDB, #93 currently on their top 250. It won 15 of 29 award nominations, usually from critics, such as Online Film Critics, London, and Kansas City; it was also nominated for the foreign language film Oscar®, losing to Spain's The Sea Inside.

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Kapó

Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy, 1959, bw (8.4*)
A long overlooked holocaust story is now available on dvd. Director Pontecorvo is best known for the ultra-realistic war docudrama The Battle of Algiers, which is a must see for fans of both war films and Italian cinema. Before making that classic, he gave us a smaller war film, yet a universal story no doubt enacted over and over in World War II.

Susan Strasbourg gives a strong and realistic portrayal of a 14-year old Jewish girl thrown into a concentration camp with her parents. She quickly realizes that children and the elderly are being executed, so she assumes the identity of an adult criminal in order to survive. She becomes a favorite of the SS officers due to her youth, and they eventually make her a kapó, prisoners who are quasi-officers above the other prisoners, who basically work for the Nazis and against their own brothers in order to get more food and other benefits.

This is not a pleasant tale, but a heroic and realistic one. Those who enjoyed Schindler's List and Stalag-17 should also like Kapó, it's that good, and belongs on the short list of excellent holocaust and prison films, and films with strong women.

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Era Notte a Roma

Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1960, bw (8.0*)aka Escape By Night
An important wartime film from Italian director Rossellini, who is perhaps not in the same league as Fellini and De Sica, but still a worthy entry into both WW2 and Italian realism genres. Rossellini is better known for his affair with Ingrid Bergman and producing offspring Isabella with her, but he also belongs on that short list of important Italian directors to emerge after the war.

In this story, three Allied prisoners, one English, one American, one Russian (how appropriate!), all escape and flee into the Italian countryside. There they are protected by locals out of a sense of Christian charity, and are smuggled into Rome, where they are hidden in an attic by black marketeer Esperia, wonderfully and credibly played by the beautiful Giovanni Ralli, who won best actress at the San Francisco Film Festival, and who dominates this film. The soldiers promise to leave as soon as possible rather than endanger Esperia, who risks a Nazi firing squad, but get trapped as they are surrounded by Nazis and collaborators, while being helped by Allied partisans fighting as anti-fascists.

Beautifully shot in black and white, with many dark but clear night shots very expertly lit. This has the feel of the ominous paintings of Italian De Chirico. The film bears the innacurate and misleading western title of "Escape by Night", while the accurate translation is "It Was Night in Rome", a more fitting description of the film's action. Don't be fooled by the misleading marketing that implies romantic interest in Esperia by the Allies, that's just bogus PR as the film is thankfully not that trite or soapy.

Quote: "Before the war, everyone was a fascist; once the Allies invaded Italy, no one was a fascist"

Note: the Russian soldier is played by Sergei Bondarchuk, who went on to become a director, who helmed the incredible 7-hour version of War and Peace in the late 60's

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Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino, 2009 (8.2*)The world's wildest director has gone B-movie plus with this wild WW2 fantasy, in which he holds his imagination in check until the last reel, then the infamous Tarantino style is in full display.

A miscast Brad Pitt (a Tennessee officer with a bad imitation southern drawl) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers in a scene lifted from the Dirty Dozen, into a group of "Apache" styled renegage killers, who beat Nazis with a bat and take their scalps as well. The idea is to be so brutal in response to Nazi brutality as to send rumors through occupied France that some incarnate devil Jews are creating fear and mayhem while remaining untouched themselves. Along the way they get help from an escaped Jewess named Shosanna who now runs a Parisian cinema, which shows German films regularly, and also an expatriate German actress, now a double agent.

Most of the scenes here are almost painstakingly slow, then erupt in some sort of violent death. There are visual references to many other films, buffs will catch them. There are even more musical references, many stolen from other films outright - spaghetti westerns seem to be the top reference, making it hard to take this as a serious film, but more like a tongue-in-cheek pastische of subtle film homages.

Enjoyable if you don't look to deep, and don't mind some occasional brutality. The film is stolen by the funny and erudite performance of Christoph Waltz, who won the film's only Oscar® and dozens of other acting awards worldwide as the man known as "The Jew Hunter". The film's script also won numerous awards. Fans of Quentin's will love this, others will perhaps be bored and scoff, I was sort of in-between: there are much better WW2 films, but there are worse Tarantino films; in fact, this may be his best after Pulp Fiction.

Currently ranked #86 on the IMDB top 250

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Stalag 17

Billy Wilder, 1953, bw (8.6*)
William Holden stars as a gritty POW in WW2 Germany in perhaps his finest role, winning an Oscar® for best actor. Apparently the barracks in which he's placed has a stool pigeon supplying information about prisoner's escape plans to the guards. Holden is a suspect because he's not only a loner, but appears to have a thriving black market exchange going on as well.

Another classic from master director Billy Wilder, who actually fled to the U.S. from Austria to escape the German invasion. Here he has made a psychological war film that's as much about what war does to men's minds as their bodies. Shot in a film noir style with many night scenes, a war classic. #208 on the IMDB top 250.

Wilder is one of the great directors, here's a small list of his best films:
The Front Page, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Lost Weekend, The Spirit of St. Louis, One Two Three, Ace in the Hole, Sabrina, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Witness For the Prosecution, The Fortune Cookie.

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Defiance

Edward Zwick, 2008 (8.0*)
They keep releasing holocaust films, and I, for one, keep watching them all; I find inspiration in the struggle of the of the common man against the fascist machine (Star Wars), usually the "freedom fighter" archetype. I saw Margaret Bourke-White's photos of Auschwitz at age 5, so the worst possible images are already seared into my psyche anyway; I recently posted a list of 100 at my Worlds Best Films site. I just saw Defiance, based on the true story of the Bielski brothers of Belarus, here played by Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber (he really fits this part!), who escaped the Nazi invasion of their land by going into the forests, as the Germans burned everything their path: villages, people, livestock, farmland. Over three years, the Bielskis saved over 1200 people, and fought alongside partisans. Their knowledge of the dense Nibelofski (sp?) Forest allowed them to continue to escape capture, and survive the winter outside.

Even though the film is not as intense as I expected, it still tells an inspiring story of those who fought back with literally nothing to begin with but a few hunting rifles, then more and more captured weapons as time progressed. This group refused to give up, and lend more historical credence to the lesson all have learned: never invade even a part of Russia. Napoleon's army invaded with over one million soldiers, and only 5000 returned to France.

A similar Russian film also eerily documents the invasion of Belarus, Come and See (1985), and it reveals the Nazi atrocities in more horrifying images, approaching a dreamlike quality rarely seen in war films outside of Apocalypse Now. Defiance is more of a traditional war film, with a good mix of story and action.

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Come and See

Elim Klimov, 1985, Russia (8.4*)
This is one of the more harrowing WW2 films, as it takes place in rural Belorussia as the Nazis invade, turning idyllic, pastoral farmland into a living hell. We see life through the eyes of a teenage boy, named Florya, brilliantly played by Alexei Kravencho, who begins the film digging in the sand for discarded weapons, which he and his friends use for playing war. Soon after, the Nazi invasion comes, and he flees with some armed partisans into the woods. Gradually through the film, his face becomes etched by horror, and his his eyes mirror his internal shock at the atrocities he witnesses.

This has some of the more memorable war scenes in memory. Director Klimov has made the film more immediate and realistic by using high contrast, grainy film and hand-held cameras. You often feel the trees whipping past you as you hike through the forest with partisans to escape the invading army, which is leaving a path of destruction. There’s a particularly frightening one of machine gun fire in the dark on a moonlit night, tracers skimming by just over the head of a prone Florya in the grass.

A warning that this depicts war brutality at its worst, and is not a family film nor one for the squeamish, but for everyone else, a must-see war film that brings the ultimate reality of mankind’s atrocities back to our consciousness once again. One of the best Russian films, #559 on our top ranked films on the net survey.

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Valkyrie

Bryan Singer, 2008 (8.7*)
Even if you know this story from history or reading William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, director Singer and screenplay authors Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander have made an excellent suspense film with a tightly woven story of an attempt to assassinate Hitler just after the D-Day invasion, July of 1944. You find yourself actually wondering what the outcome will be, as if suddenly plunged into an alternate history story.

The film begins with chief plotter Col. Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) in North Africa, receiving battle injuries that would relegate him to a bureaucratic role for the remainder of the war. Along with many other Germans who could see Hitler destroying both Germany and all of Europe, they felt they owed it to humanity to forge a truce with the Allies immediately, especially before they reached Berlin. These included men within the German army and the government, who began to covertly plot together, and it was no small conspiracy. Von Stauffenberg is brought into the group by superiors.

The cast is excellent overall, especially Bill Nighy as General Friedrich Olbricht; other recognizable talents include Kenneth Branagh and Tom Wilkinson. Cruise is good enough, though a German actor may have been a better choice, he's just a little too American, better suited for Born on the Fourth of July, still his best role to date, receiving a best actor nomination.

Overall, an excellent suspense film, well-made, very authentic looking with just enough mix of plot development and action, while remaining pretty accurate to history. Singer is better at this type of film, like his The Usual Suspects, than the action films he's recently tackled; he's in his element again here.

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Mrs. Miniver

William Wyler, 1942, bw (8.2*)
Best Picture (AA)
This was the first William Wyler film to win best picture after a slew of nominations. He would eventually be nominated for director 13 times, with 12 best picture nominations, by far the most for one director. Mrs. Miniver is a beautiful woman, played by Greer Garson, in a beautiful film about a small coastal town in England at the onset of World War II. Garson won best actress for this, the middle of five straight nominations. She was only 33 but played the mother of a now adult son, and became the top box-office draw because of this role.

We see the pastoral village setting in the beginning as the town is getting ready for an annual garden festival with awards eagerly sought by the locals for the best rose, the best crysanthemum, and down the line. When the war starts, we see how the entire town responds. Mr. Miniver is played by Oscar®-nominee (actor) Walter Pidgeon in perhaps his finest performance, and he reeks gentility and proper British mettle in doing the right thing for king and country, so he becomes a member of the civilian guard, eventually taking his boat to Dunkirk. His son, now 18, joins the army and pilot school, as England is under attack from the air almost daily. His young bride, Teresa Wright, won a best supporting Oscar®. We get to see the early part of the war from the point of view of civilians, and the effect on them, we don’t spend time with soldiers at the battle front. That seems to be Wyler’s point as a filmmaker: war affects innocent civilians as well as brave soldiers – all are changed, no one can simply hope for it all to pass.

Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives, the Best Picture of 1946, did this brilliantly and cynically, and remains my favorite anti-war film. Mrs. Miniver was filmed as the war began, and showed a pro-war propagandistic tone, as a scene with a downed German pilot made it clear that they were bent on destruction and had to be met with the same kind of determined force in return. Seven Oscars®, including actress, director, screenplay, and picture.

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The Great Escape

John Sturges (1963) (7.6*)
Veteran director John Sturges (Bad Day at Black Rock, The Magnificent Seven) made a WW2 pow film that’s enjoyable by injecting a little humor, likeable characters, and providing a variety of heroes, especially the Americans (!). This is a glorified big budget, big cast, Hollywood version of a real Allied pow escape from a German prison for US officers, mostly downed airmen, and we don't mean 2-3 men either, but hundreds, so Sturges used a big and varied cast of popular actors, both British and American. We see, in painstaking detail, how the escape tunnel is dug and what happens afterwards to each character, which makes the film more accurate but a little lengthy.

Steve McQueen (don't be misled by the dvd cover, he's just one actor of many here) would only take his part if he could “do something heroic”, so he gets to not only escape just to get info and come back, but also make a daring getaway on a motorcycle, complete with stunts. James Garner, James Coburn, Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasance, and Charles Bronson all get to play likeable characters (only Nazis had jerks in some films). Entertaining and fun, especially when compared to dark films like Stalag-17.

Down one star for slow pacing and length, needs a half hour trim..

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Sahara

Zoltan Korda, 1943, bw (7.4*)
Excellent war adventure, as Humphrey Bogart leads a stranded tank squad to a hidden water well in North Africa. Eventually they have to face about 500 Nazis (thankfully with no tanks), who are also searching for water. This becomes a tight, suspenseful story, with very good bw cinematography and is generally one of the oft-overlooked WW2 films. Propagandistic at times, sure, but for 1943 that's to be expected; at least some Nazi officers were bilingual and intelligent.

Note: Definitely NOT to be confused with the 2005 Matthew McConaughey adventure that is lighter than popcorn by comparison (and a waste of time to me).

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Band of Brothers

2001, 10 Hours (10*)
Dirs: Tom Hanks, Philip Alden Robinson, Mikael Salomon, David Nutter, David Leyland, David Frankel, Tony To

Best Miniseries (Emmy, GG)

Based on the book by historian Stephen Ambrose, who worked with Ken Burns on The Civil War for PBS and who also co-produced, this immense achievement follows Easy Company from training in England, to their parachute drop the night before D-Day until the end of the war, and is interspersed with interviews of surviving participants.

Reportedly this cost producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg over 100 million, followed their collaboration on Saving Pvt Ryan, and is now perhaps the best docudrama of all-time. The D-Day parachute drop sequence alone is probably the best war footage yet produced - it combines the best CGI special effects with historical accuracy and exciting editing to create a nightmarish vision of war never seen before. This is no battle in space with imaginary deaths of aliens, this is the real thing and exactly what happened to thousands of allied soldiers.

Worthy of its length, each part is a different film with a different director, hence the overall consistency may appear uneven to the most discerning, but that's a triviality. I also think having an unknown cast was a stroke of genius, because it makes it seem like we're watching real soldiers, not some star pretending he is a real wartime participant.

This is an all-time top 10! 6 Emmys for 19 nominations

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The Train

John Frankenheimer, 1964, bw (8.6*)
For some reason, this is a WW2 action film that you don't hear much about, but one of Frankenheimer's (Seven Days in May, Manchurian Candidate, Ronin) best films. The story involves Frenchman Burt Lancaster trying stop a Nazi officer from moving a trainload of stolen French art (the national culture!) back to Germany before the war can end. The moral dilemna comes from having to decide if this is worthy enough cause to give up your life, for either side.

Lancaster does all his own stunts, mostly involving moving trains, and can often be seen limping from a shooting injury. Terrific cinematography and editing, with a screenplay that garnered an Oscar nomination, the film got a British academy (BAFTA) nomination for best picture, and deserves to be in the conversation of best war films.

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The Counterfeiters

Stefan Ruzowitzsky, 2007, Austria (7.8*)
Best Foreign Film (AA)
Engrossing story of a true Nazi plot to counterfeit so many British pounds and U.S. dollars as to affect those economies by flooding the market with bogus money, inflating the currencies. This was possible due to master forger Salomon Sorowitsch, brilliantly played by Karl Marcovichs, being caught by a Nazi officer who knew his skills, and when promoted to head of the secret counterfeiting operation, he brings Salomon onto the team of the best printers, engravers, and forgers the Nazis could round up.

This film is immaculate in its details, and becomes a film about honor vs. survival as do many WW2 stories. Won the Oscar in 2008 for Foreign Language Film.

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