Fräulein

I've got multiple movies on my DVR that I recorded off of FXM because they're new to me and showing up frequently in the FXM rotation, which is why it might seem they're coming up a bit more often than before. This time around, that movie is Fräulein. Its next airing is tomorrow morning at 10:30 on FXM.

Dana Wynter plays the Fräulein in question, a young woman named Erika Angermann living with her father Julius (Ivan Triesault), a college professor in Cologne in early 1945. Now, if you know your history, you'll know that this is not too long before the Nazis' final defeat in World War II; and if you didn't know it, a title card helpfully tells you we're in Cologne just before the end of the war. The Nazis are transporting a bunch of POWs, but thanks to an Allied bombing raid, one of them, Maj. Foster MacLain (Mel Ferrer) is able to escape. He seeks refuge in the Angermann house, and Dad is willing to help even though Erika isn't so sure, especially since she's got a fiancé who's serving in the Wehrmacht.

The bombing raid destroys the upper floor of the Angermann house, killing Julius. Erika decides to make the idiotic decision of seeking aid from her uncle Karl, who lives in Berlin. And somehow, despite all the chaos of war, Erika is able to make it to Berlin and find her uncle who's living in a house that seems surprisingly undamaged considering all of the bombing raids and the horrors of the final months of war. Karl, having a big house, has had it requisitioned to allow some Nazis, the Graubachs, to live with him.

The Soviets take Berlin, and Karl understands this means the Red Army is going to be looking for nubile young women to rape considering how long it's been since all those young Red Army soldiers have had sex. When Soviet Colonel Bucaron (Theodore Bikel) brings a bunch of men into the Angermann house, Uncle Karl hides Erika in the attic. But when one of the Red Army soldiers tries to go after Frau Graubach during a drunken party, the Graubachs inform him about Erika up in the attic. What a nady piece of work. Karl tries to stop the guy, but Karl and the soldier both die, Karl being shot and the soldier falling off the roof when Erika flees there.

Erika starts working as a Trümmerfrau, one of the women cleaning up all the rubble left from the Allied bombing campaigns that destroyed Germany during the war. That is until the Graubachs, looking surprisingly well-dressed and with influence, show up and offer Erika a place to stay. Of course, that place to stay is a brothel and Erika, along with all of the other "nieces" is expected to provide the men who show up a good time. Erika only suspects things when the men start showing up, and flees the place.

Eventually she gets a job at a bizarre club where the women sit atop a dunking pit and the men throw baseballs trying to dunk the women into getting them into wet dresses. Amazingly enough, who should show up at the club but Maj. Maclain? He still has the overcoat that Erika's dad gave him to evade the Nazis, and is now falling in love with Erika. But he's decent enough that he tries to find Erika's fiancé (Helmut Dantine), who has decided that, as an amputee, he doesn't want to subject Erika to the rough life he's going to face. Maj. MacLain then tries to figure out a way to get Erika to America, but the Graubachs have a trick up their sleeves....

Fräulein is an interesting movie despite the flaws it suffers from. For me, the big thing is that this seemed to be a thoroughly sanitized Hollywood version of post-war Germany. As I stated at the beginning, it seems hard to believe that Erika wouldn't have been evacuated from Cologne, or that she would have been able to make her way to Berlin ahead of the advancing Allied armies. Then there's the issue of her being too naïve to understand what the Graubachs were up to. But if you can suspend disbelief the story isn't bad and despite the serious material it's fairly undemanding. Wynter shines while Mel Ferrer is competent, and the supporting actors do OK.

Fräulein is another of those films that's not the greatest movie by any stretch of the imagination, but is entertaining enough for a watch.