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Shards of war, dreams of cooperation. From Paris to Berlin gives the view of après-guerre Europe, the American agronomist (Robert Ryan) absorbs it in a stressful vacation. Also on board are the French businessman (Charles Korvin), the British instructor (Robert Coote) and the Soviet trooper (Roman Toporow), plus the mysterious German (Paul Lukas) and his companion (Merle Oberon). A bomb liquidates the peace envoy and suddenly the fellow travelers are witnesses and suspects, a stop in Frankfurt reveals a bombed-out exoskeleton on top of the remains of the Nazi resistance. "The builders of Germany? The wreckers of peace and unity!" The welter of assassinations, kidnappings and betrayals is pieced out of Spione, The Lady Vanishes and Foreign Correspondent, Jacques Tourneur keeps it in delicate balance. An early joke (Oberon turning down one would-be Casanova after another in different languages) establishes the fluid tenor of shifting identities, alliances and versions of history, "no one's address is dependable." Documentary views of the rubble mingle with noir shadows in the haunted realm, nightclub clowns and black marketeers (Hitler's autograph goes for two packs of cigarettes) fill the void. Blunt symbols ("The dove of peace is a dead pigeon," it gets a makeshift funeral) and tell-tale reflections, the disused brewery for the underground meeting and the rusty vat illuminated by gun blasts. A small courtesy is enough hope in the finale at Brandenburg Gate, yet Tourneur knows how elusive wholeness can be—each jeep goes its own way while the camera lingers on the maimed figure limping through the ruins. Wilder is nearby with A Foreign Affair. With Reinhold Schünzel, Peter von Zerneck, Otto Waldis, Fritz Kortner, and Michael Harvey. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |