Two German Actors


Obviously, "Decision Before Dawn" is one of my favorite pictures. Two of the main actors have had interesting careers.

Ms. Hildegarde Neff: She was "Hilde" in the movie, the conflicted German dancehall girl who ultimately befriends young Karl Maurer. Neff was very popular in Europe, appearing in 57 films and was working when she died in February, 2002. She is great in the movie she made the following year after "Decision Before Dawn"...she was the haughty "Countess Liz" opposite Gregory Peck in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."

Mr. Oskar Werner: The main star, "Karl Maurer" codenamed "Happy." Wasn't he great in this picture? He didn't work as much in film as Neff but showed up later in a few great roles...as "Fiedler," the East German master interogator opposite Richard Burton in "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold." And he shows up as the killer in a "Columbo" TV detective episode. He was in "Farenheit 451."

"Decision Before Dawn", to me, is like looking thru a time tunnel into the past. The story is based on a real American intel operation in 1945. There is a lot of basic spy tradecraft shown in the picture. It's one of those "hidden jewels" that many people when asked about their favorite movies about WWII have never heard of when you mention it.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Thanks for reading my remarks.

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Occasionally I let slip my observation that there are some surprising parallels in plot and characters, between this movie and "The Departed" (2006) which is in turn a remake of "Infernal Affairs" (2002). Trust me, you have to use a fertile imagination to see the coincidental similarities but it's worth the effort.

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Apologies in advance for my nitpicking, but Oskar Werner was Austrian and, as far as I know, he wouldn't have liked to be called German.

He was above all a legendary Viennese theatre actor. Years ago I heard a radio documentary about him, and the people who had seen him as Hamlet, were so impressed with his moving performance that I still remember their praise.

I fell in love with him, when I saw "Decision Before Dawn" as an adolescent. He had a unique, distinctive voice, sensitive and melancholic, and I enjoy listening to his recordings of poems, especially Rilke.

Hildegard Knef was indeed German and a legend as well.

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I also liked OW very much in Shoes of the Fisherman in 1968. While I'm not religious, I liked that film, and it very interestingly dramatized something considered unthinkable at the time, a non-Italian pope, which then became true a decade later.

I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTO

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a non-Italian pope, which then became true a decade later.


A Non Italian pope from an Eastern Bloc Nation to boot...the only thing was that Karol Woyjtila was never sent to the Gulag.

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Indeed, Nick. Hey, when life imitates art, you can't expect it to stick completely to the script!
PS, one mildly amusing thing about SOTF, was that the Russian pope was played by a Mexican actor! Quite well too, IMHO. That's why they call it acting.

I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTO

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He was credible and sympathetic.

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Nine years is a long time to respond to a post but I'll do it anyway.

I thought that Hildegarde Neff was very realistic playing the part of an older (well, about 35 or 40) German woman. In reading about her on IMDB, I was very intrigued about how she imitated a man at the end of WWII so that she would not be raped by Russian soldiers.

Also she played the role of Ninotchka in Silk Stockings on Broadway. She was compared to Garbo because of her looks and husky voice. When I think of Silk Stockings, I think of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse dancing to "I Like the Looks of You." I wonder if Hildegarde also danced.

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I also enjoyed Werner in a late-career turn as the villain on a Columbo episode.

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