Curt Jurgens stars as a courageous Luftwaffe officer. Jurgens loves the service, even though he barely tolerates the Hitler regime. Sickened by wartime Nazi atrocities, Jurgens renounces his government, and is imprisoned and tortured as a result. Once released, the general takes pity on a downtrodden Jewish family. This isolated act of kindness is a point in his favor when Jurgens stands before Satan himself for his final judgment. The Devil's General was based on an immensely successful postwar play by German author Carl Zuckmeyer.
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The Age of Commercialism
Sorry, this movie sucks
Captivating movie !
The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.
"Des Teufels General" "The Devil's General" is a German black-and-white film that had its 60th anniversary last year and stars Curd Jürgens, mostly known for his performances as a Bond villain. Jürgens was one of the most successful German actors at this point and in this film here he shows us why that was the case. He certainly elevates the material. Unfortunately, this is not too big of a challenge as I must say the material by writer and director Helmut Käutner is not particularly good or memorable. I definitely believe Harry Harras, a man who really existed, deserved a better film made about him. If you know Graf Stauffenberg, then you will know the general direction this film is taking. It is about a very successful German military general during the days of the Nazi reign and World War II, but things take a turn for the worse for him when his loyalty to Reichsfüührer Adolf Hitler begins more and more to crumble. Catastrophe is inevitable, for the Nazis and for Harras. The films runs for almost 2 hours and I felt there were many moments when it dragged, so it should have been kept shorter I think, maybe at 100 minutes max, the runtime of most German films from around that era. As a whole, I cannot recommend the watch. Thumbs down.
This is a near perfect film. Very very very intelligent, flows like the Danube...to the gates of hell, with Jurgens at the helm in one of the most fantastic performances by any actor anywhere anytime. Every moment of the thing is so polished and subtle that it shames most other actors I have ever seen. The others here commenting on his performance and the movie have pretty much nailed it. However sometimes you come across a performance that is so good.......well, I rank it with that of James Cagney in White Heat, Louis Calhern in Asphalt Jungle, Claude Rains in Deception, and James Stewart's various high points in the Mann Westerns as the kind of acting that money cannot buy at any price. Just watch Jergens and behold.
A movie that I saw for the first time decades ago and numerous times since! Every time I watch it, I discover new facets in Harras'personality. On one hand he is the tough guy, the party animal, the womanizer; however, he shows his softer, almost romantic side when he meets Diddo Geiss. I think that the movie could be a wonderful teaching tool, because it illustrates how "non-political", even rebellious Germans were drawn into the Nazi ideology and paid the ultimate price! Udo Jürgens and Marianne Koch were fabulous together! I would recommend this film for upper level German classes in the US. It is a good addition to "Die weisse Rose" or "Sophie Scholl".
The epic of Goethe's "Faust" replayed in real life (Ernst Udet, Generalluftzeugmeister, was the source for Zuckmayer's General Harras), and in a play by Carl Zuckmayer. Displays excellently how Germans were suckered into following the modern day "Pied Piper from Austria": Adolf Hitler; and how you have to pay the piper if you follow him. "Denn wer auf Erden des Teufels General gewesen ist und ihm die Bahn gebombt hat, der muss ihm auch in der Hoelle Quartier machen!" - "For whoever was the Devil's General on this Earth, and who bombed the path for him, also has to be his quartermaster in hell!"
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