A US Congress committee arrives in post-war Berlin to access the morale and behaviour of the troops. In the party is a stiff, by-the-book Iowa congresswoman who uses any opportunity to put down the US troops. She discovers that a German nightclub singer has Nazi connections and should be in jail but for a connection in the US Army. She enlists the help of an army captain to track down the connection, little knowing that he is in a relationship with the singer and is the connection.
A Billy Wilder romantic drama. I'm generally not a fan of romantic dramas and this is no exception: cheesy, predictable with some farcical sub-plots and lame dialogue.
The one plus is the setting: largely filmed in 1947/48 Berlin you feel like you're witnessing history. Wilder spares no effort in displaying the effects of WW2 on the city and it is quite saddening, seeing what war does to a once-great metropolis. Also saddening and eye-opening is the level the population are reduced to: living in bombed-out hovels, bartering for the smallest thing, living hand-to-mouth.
A pity then that Wilder did not make more of this opportunity to use this once-in-a-lifetime backdrop, rather than simply make an empty romantic drama.
A Billy Wilder romantic drama. I'm generally not a fan of romantic dramas and this is no exception: cheesy, predictable with some farcical sub-plots and lame dialogue.
The one plus is the setting: largely filmed in 1947/48 Berlin you feel like you're witnessing history. Wilder spares no effort in displaying the effects of WW2 on the city and it is quite saddening, seeing what war does to a once-great metropolis. Also saddening and eye-opening is the level the population are reduced to: living in bombed-out hovels, bartering for the smallest thing, living hand-to-mouth.
A pity then that Wilder did not make more of this opportunity to use this once-in-a-lifetime backdrop, rather than simply make an empty romantic drama.