noki53 says > I would hardly consider it feel good. The LaMarr character, the heroine Theodore, is proud of the fact that she sent her 2nd husband off to Lubyanka, which was an interrogation/torture facilty of unspeakable horror. Would it have felt just as good if his destination were Dachau? Also disturbing to me is the glib manner in which the execution of 100 peasants was handled. Again, would it still amuse if the victims were Jewish prisoners in the Warsaw ghetto? The whole wink and a nod attitude this movie takes is simply astounding. But that's just my opinion.
That's not fair. Like the OP, I love this movie too and, based on what you've said, I think you missed the point. The movie is making fun of serious topics but it does it in a way to ridicule the people and their beliefs. Movies can send a serous message in a lighthearted way; often people are receptive when they're shown the absurdity of a situation rather than when they're confronted with it in a grim way.
We know what awful things happened during the war but this movie was made in 1940 before a lot of the things you mentioned actually took place and/or were widely known. Auschwitz, for instance, perhaps the best known extermination camp wasn't even built until 1941. In the movie, Gable's character pretends the caller is telling him about the German invasion of Russia but in real life that hadn't even happened yet.
You have to remember we, the US, weren't involved in the war yet. In fact, in 1940, FDR was still saying our boys would NOT be sent to foreign wars. How can you blame the filmmakers for things we have knowledge of today but they didn't necessarily know at the time they made the movie? As time went on things got progressively worse and when we did enter the war, a lot of Hollywood celebrities, including Gable did military service.
In regards to Theodore's second husband, it was an example to show what craziness was going on. People were so caught up in the ideologies they were being fed, some would turn in their own family members and friends. Later, in Russia the tide would change and those who had been on the outs were back in and vice versa.
They used the backdrop of the Russia during the war but a lot of those same issues like blindly following ideals because they're delivered by charismatic (though hypocritical) leaders still occurs today. There are still plenty of mindless twits around who can't wait to jump on whatever bandwagon is going around at any given moment. Sometimes all you can do is laugh. If modern-day audiences are introduced to these issues through a comedy, that's wonderful. I wasn't around in those days. It was many decades before I was born but I learn a lot because of movies like this. They make me want to know even more about the things that occurred during that time.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]
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cyninbend-149-610489
8 years ago
mdonin,
Great response! I too watched it from the standpoint that it was before Hitler invaded Eastern Europe and the USSR, and before the US was in the war--we were enemies then! Hitler had a pact with Stalin that he was about to break--in hideously violent fashion , murdering entire towns and villages of people. But no one knew that then. The light-hearted silliness was fantastic--and would soon be completely inappropriate for decades.
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