MovieChat Forums > Edge of Darkness (1943) Discussion > More a comedy than a war movie!

More a comedy than a war movie!

posted 12 years ago by jsrrtzjr10
9 replies | jump to latest

Of course Nazis were evil. But this movie makes them look so stereotypical and ridiculous! With heavy Nazi propaganda speech all the time. In World War II it was the Nazi leaders, like Hitler and Goebbels, who talked like that but not always the average Wehrmacht soldiers and their officers. Even the helmets are all wrong: "the Germans" are all wearing heavy and quite big World War I stahlhem helmets [the real World War II German helmets were a little smaller!].And the "Norwegians" we see are also so stereotypical, shallow, ridiculous and boring. If Errol Flyinn did it for money, obviously, I can see why he made it. Also came to dislike Ann Sheridan's character of Karen. And the reverend, talking "peace" and hiding a machine gun? Well, "praise the Lord and pass the ammunitions". And one thing: while there was a resistance movement in Norway during the Nazi occupation no town openly defied the Nazis except in one tragic case in 1942 [see wikipedia on Norway Nazi occupation]. And many Nazi soldiers wanted to serve in Norway because it was the place where there was the least anti-Nazi resistance, except cases of sabotage and some partisans attacks but not like the one portrayed in this ridiculous Hollywood movie. And many Norwegians SERVED in the Nazi Wehrmacht and even joined the SS! Stalin captured many Norwegians in Nazi uniforms during World War II, and returned them to Norway after 1946. The Nazi German garrison in Norway was the LAST to surrender in World War II in May 11th of 1945! And Norwegian King let most of the German soldiers and officers to leave peacefully the country after the surrender, except the more hardcore ones to clean up the mines and help rebuild the country. Meanwhile Vidkun Quisling and a few Norwegian officers were arrested and held as war criminals. And Quisling put on trial, found guilty and executed. This is just a fictional movie and one for laughs than to take it seriously. I have seen it four times now. And the more I see it the more laughs I have!

[–] Hojon 12 years ago

I think you're being a tad picky about the historical inaccuracies in the film and missing the bigger picture. No one claimed that this movie was a true story. As a depiction of Norway and its people during WWII, you're correct in that it's not very accurate, but when viewed simply as a fictional morality play about people choosing to fight back against Nazi occupation, it's actually pretty darn good. The film's setting, after all, is largely inconsequential. It could've been set anywhere in Europe. The point of it was to inspire audiences to support the war effort, not to educate them about what was really going on in Norway at the time. While a more accurate film might be interesting to watch today; back then, it just would've provoked useless, anti-Norwegian sentiment. Yes, this is a propaganda film (all Hollywood films made about the war during those years were), but for me at least, this one stands out as one of the more intelligent. The script is thoughtful and mature for a Hollywood war picture and the acting, particularly from the supporting cast (Walter Huston, Ruth Gordon, Roman Bohnen, etc), is pretty solid. Not that I would've expected less from Lewis Milestone, the director behind All Quiet on the Western Front, A Walk in the Sun, and Pork Chop Hill - three equally intelligent films that try to make the viewer think about war rather than glorify it.

"Sticking together's what good waffles do"

[–] jsrrtzjr10 12 years ago

Anyway I have seen it several times since a teenager in New Jersey back in the early 1970s. I thought it ridiculous, and the more I have seen it, the more it makes me laugh. The Nazi officer acting like some immature Goebbels, and the girl talking to the German officers, while the Norwegian resistance were coming, and killed, and one of the German soldiers behind her looked rather foolish with his Stalhelm helmet. I am a heavy reader of Nazi Germany and World War II [fast, what was the original last name of Hitler's father?], and this movie is comedy for me. Even the beginning when the town's major is machine gunned by the Nazis, he fell in a way that I found it also ridiculous! He even moved his hand while "dying" [and I bet when he got up went laughing to get his check!] But maybe you are right, it was propaganda, and done too fast. No wonder how ridiculous it came out! For more realistic World War II movies I rather watch "G I Joe", "Battleground" of 1949, "Patton" of 1970, or more recently "Saving Private Ryan" and "Stalingrad". Case closed.

[–] jsrrtzjr10 12 years ago

And one last comment: nobody talks loud when receiving hidden weapons and equipments like the "Norwegian" guys in this movie. Silence is golden. Don't we forget there are German centinels, plus traitors, around the area watching?

[–] phillipsdan83 9 years ago

The film is propaganda, sure, but do you suppose there were that many proper Stalhelm helmets in Allied hands at that point of the war? Hollywood usually used the wrong World War's German helmets until about the early sixties, and approximations of Japanese uniforms and weaponry until around 1950.

[–] irishtom99 8 years ago

the OP says propaganda like its a perjorative..in a time when monsters were massacring millions,films were made to inspire and rally..wether realistic in its execution or not,it depicted a brave and determined resistence to bigoted murderers..
i'm glad he found it hilarious

[–] tugboatphil 8 years ago

I was wondering why he kept watching it since the 70s if the inaccuracies annoyed him so much.

[–] RobbieCalifornia 8 years ago

And it certainly wasn't a comedy. What a callous thing to say.

Such a film, made in 1943, was made to inspire people and give them hope in terribly dark times.

[–] Underdog_73 8 years ago

I was wondering why he kept watching it since the 70s if the inaccuracies annoyed him so much.

This is the first thing I wondered myself. Then again, the OP's perception and comprehension of the movie was also lacking. Why anyone would purposely waste time doing something they don't like escapes me. Misinterpreting it to boot makes it that much more tragic. That said, I don't know how any logical person could take the OP's opinion seriously. To each their own though.

[–] mrohlee 8 years ago

I thought it was a little bold to show the one German who was the carpenter seeming like a regular guy. He certainly wasn't the type of German that normally appeared in war movies. They were either bumbling, or evil and somewhat robotic. Here was a guy that was trying to put the moves on Judith Andersen in the same type of way an American GI might have.