I was reading reports of the John Demjanjuk trial today and it immediately reminded me of this film. Like most others, I haven't seen this film in over 20 years and Quinn, who in my opinion gives his BEST performance ever, is luminous as Johann Moritz, a simple Romanian peasant, who is caught up as the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time throughout World War 2 and has absolutely no idea why. Yet, through the entire story, he never loses his essential goodness, compassion and humanity.
Spoilers Follow: Quinn plays Moritz as an easygoing Romanian peasant married to Verna Lisi who is coveted by the local police chief. Falsely denounced by the Chief as a Jew, he is shipped off to a concentration camp with the other Jews of his town. While an inmate with his friends in the Concentration camp, he is spotted by an SS officer from the Nazi Office of Racial Purity who questions him about his background and ancestry. As a result, he is pronounced of Pure Aryan blood by the SS, given a job in the SS guarding the same camp where he was formerly an inmate and publicized in the German propaganda of the day. He uses his new position to smuggle food to his friends and, ultimately, saves their lives by killing the other SS guards who want to execute them. Captured by the Russians, he is thrown into prison for three years until he is tried as a War Criminal only to be acquitted because of the testimony of the Jewish friends whose lives he saved.
Throughout the film, Moritz never loses his essential humanity and acts out of love and friendship to do the right thing. Quinn inhabits the role of Moritz and displays the gamut of emotions far beyond even La Strada or Zorba. Many have compared this film to "Schndler's List", but I think a more apt comparison would be to Agniezka Holland's "Europa, Europa" or Jiri Menzel's "I Served The King Of England" as similar stories. Henri Verneuil's direction captures the Romanian peasant society perfectly while illustrating that ethnic prejudice was not confined to Germans/Jewish alone. Verna Lisi's performance is among her finest and the rest of the supporting cast are equally well-done.
As a result of all this, I actually found New DVD copies of this film available on Amazon.com. I ordered a copy for myself and HIGHLY recommend it to everybody else. SEE THIS FILM. If you're like me and most other reviewers here it will, simultaneously, uplift your spirits and haunt you for years as it illustrates the fundamental absurdity of War and Hate.
Spoilers Follow: Quinn plays Moritz as an easygoing Romanian peasant married to Verna Lisi who is coveted by the local police chief. Falsely denounced by the Chief as a Jew, he is shipped off to a concentration camp with the other Jews of his town. While an inmate with his friends in the Concentration camp, he is spotted by an SS officer from the Nazi Office of Racial Purity who questions him about his background and ancestry. As a result, he is pronounced of Pure Aryan blood by the SS, given a job in the SS guarding the same camp where he was formerly an inmate and publicized in the German propaganda of the day. He uses his new position to smuggle food to his friends and, ultimately, saves their lives by killing the other SS guards who want to execute them. Captured by the Russians, he is thrown into prison for three years until he is tried as a War Criminal only to be acquitted because of the testimony of the Jewish friends whose lives he saved.
Throughout the film, Moritz never loses his essential humanity and acts out of love and friendship to do the right thing. Quinn inhabits the role of Moritz and displays the gamut of emotions far beyond even La Strada or Zorba. Many have compared this film to "Schndler's List", but I think a more apt comparison would be to Agniezka Holland's "Europa, Europa" or Jiri Menzel's "I Served The King Of England" as similar stories. Henri Verneuil's direction captures the Romanian peasant society perfectly while illustrating that ethnic prejudice was not confined to Germans/Jewish alone. Verna Lisi's performance is among her finest and the rest of the supporting cast are equally well-done.
As a result of all this, I actually found New DVD copies of this film available on Amazon.com. I ordered a copy for myself and HIGHLY recommend it to everybody else. SEE THIS FILM. If you're like me and most other reviewers here it will, simultaneously, uplift your spirits and haunt you for years as it illustrates the fundamental absurdity of War and Hate.