Hollywoodshack James Best plays the last soldier left in a German village raided by Allied Forces during World War II. He is wounded and nursed to health by a native (Susan Cummings) whose brother is still loyal to a local Nazi group. The couple falls in love and wants to get married, but it is forbidden by Best's commanding officer. Including some gritty footage of Nazi death camps and a daring rescue by Best of his girlfriend's brother from a burning train, this is one of Samuel Fuller's most underrated films. It was produced after RKO Radio Pictures had closed in 1956, sold to Desi Arnaz and General Tire and Rubber Company. There's an unforgettable opening scene, a shootout to the tune of Bethoven's 5th Symphony.

LeonLouisRicci There is Only One Sam Fuller and His Detractors might say that was Certainly Enough. But No One can Argue that Sam Fuller made Boring, Uninteresting, or Common Movies. He was Anything but Common.While watching a Fuller Movie one is Struck by the Audaciousness as it Unspools with the Usual Low-Budget and Barely Professional Actors. For His Films are all about the Subject. Be it War, Western, Crime, or any Number of Odd Stories He chose to do, Sam Fuller always gave His Heart and Soul.In this WWII Movie it is the Very End and Post War Germany that is the Setting and the Nazis have been Reduced to Nothing More than a Street Gang and the Occupiers are Struggling to keep all the Threads of Society from coming Unraveled. The Most Basic Things like Food and Medicine are in Short Supply and there is Never a Shortage of Suffering People.This is just some of the Layers that Fuller Uses here to Elicit a Template of Surreal Cynicism. The Claustrophobic Sets and the Dense Lighting also Manage a Meilu of a Hell on Earth. Posters and Leaflets are Wallpaper and Signposts and the Love Story is not only Edgy but Verboten. This is the Writer/Director's Vintage Heavy Handedness that is a Delight to Watch and is Another Example why there is Only One Sam Fuller.

hcoursen I enjoyed this for a couple of reasons. The emotional tangle was at times confusing and imperfectly resolved, but the blend of newsreel footage with the film's narrative was often compelling. The other element that I appreciated was the depiction of the Werewolves, the fanatical Nazis who continued the fight after the formal surrender. I don't know of another film that deals with them. They assassinated Burgomaster Oppenhoff of Aachen on Palm Sunday, 1945, for example, and did create problems for the occupation. The film, then, challenges the sanitized version of victory and occupation with some gritty realities. The "human issues" are presented not so much through the characters here, but through the historical reality that was gripping those who had survived Hitler -- both conquered and victors.

pscott74 One of Fuller's (a combat veteran himself) early works of average quality, but accurately hits on the many conflicting aspects of life in postwar Germany. The main character starts the movie in Apr'45 as a Sgt with C Co, 157th Inf, 45th Div, which really did end the war in Munich as in the movie. (Same unit in the previous month had fought heavily in Aschaffenburg and then liberated part of the Dachau facility). To the uninformed the movie may seem confusing by flip flopping between showing the good & bad of the german people. But anyone who has been there or at least well read on it would know that most of what is portrayed in the movie are things that really did happen in 45-47 Germany. The only inaccuracy I noticed was minor: while on a boat cruise of the Rhine passing the remains of the Remagen bridge he comments he crossed there. But his unit really crossed well south of there - north of Worms Germany.