# American films with sympathetic German characters? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 1, 2004, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990 "2004-03-01T23:27:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/41 "2004-03-02T22:43:43Z")
Haven’t actually seen it myself, but what about _Cabaret_? ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/42 "2004-03-02T22:50:29Z")
Zee Terminator is from Austria, not Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/43 "2004-03-02T23:07:36Z")
**The Adventures of Baron Munchausen** , perhaps? **Pride of the Yankees** , released _during_ WWII, had a sympathetic portrayal of Lou Gehrig’s German parents. Does that count? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/44 "2004-03-02T23:10:13Z")
Oops. **The Adventures of Baron Munchausen** wasn’t an American film, but a joint UK/German production. I therefore withdraw it from consideration. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/45 "2004-03-02T23:19:09Z")
**Flight of the Phoenix** A German aeronautical engineer saves the passengers of a plane after it crashes in the desert by having them rebuild it from the wreckage. A very, very good movie. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/46 "2004-03-02T23:20:33Z")
Isn’t there a movie about **The Brothers Grimm** in production? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/47 "2004-03-02T23:35:08Z")
> [@ColonelDax](#): > > Your teacher, with all due respect, could not be more wrong. For some clarification, the color version was made as a TV movie. Both versions have their stregnths and weaknesses: The original has earnest, but generally poor acting. The remake has very good acting overall. Many famous names are on that roster. The remake has good ‘sets’ but is fairly weak on the ‘action’. Their explosives budget seems low, but they make good use of it. By comparison, some of the ‘stunts’ in the original are unbeleivable. Men almost running into a wall of exploding shells is quite harrowing when you realize that it had to be done ‘live’. However, the fight scenes in the trenches look a bit hokey. The remakes actions scenes fulfill a 70’s belief that no assault on enemy trenches got anywhere at all, which is not what the book states. The original shows that most assaults could take the first lines of trenches, then falter. It also shows how the movie crews hired machine gun crews who were likely veterans of the war. Those guys are a little too good at disassembling the MG’s to be regular actors. Neither follows the book exactly, but it was not written to be easily made into a movie. The remake removes some of the more cutey/sentimental scenes (such as the talk about ‘how wars start’). Both versions replace the vengence scene on the headmaster with a confrontation with the man at his schoolhouse. Both versions have the cruel Cpl. Himmelstosch, but the remake shows a good demonstration of his cruelty much more effectively. In the original he’s just a jerk, in the remake he is the sadist baumer makes him out to be. Both versions skip the “rebellion” and go straight to pummelling the drunk corporal. Neither one handles the ‘dead French printer’ scene very well. Its a hard scene to do, and it does stick out as odd in the book. The remake gives a much greater feel for the front near the end of the war, when they are getting killed off fighting in muddy craters instead of trenches. The original used a plot device (boots of death) to show casualties of war. Both versions only touched slightly on how much of the books involves teh soldiers trying to aquire food. I could say more, but both versions are available for viewing. And I think I just seriously hijacked this thread. ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/48 "2004-03-02T23:41:53Z")
For a German character evoking sympathy you really can’t beat Marlon Brando’s character in **The Young Lions**. Great movie too. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/49 "2004-03-02T23:45:20Z")
Immortal Beloved I.Q. The Desert Fox ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/50 "2004-03-03T00:09:42Z")
> [@missbunny](#): > > Who was the German in East of Eden? I can’t remember. Thanks. If I’m remembering correctly there is a German shop-owner who is harrassed by some of the townfolk. By the way, thanks for adding the “L” to my ‘Schinder’s List’ post! ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/51 "2004-03-03T00:22:56Z")
Billy WIlder’s classic comedy, “One, Two, Three” starring James Cagney with a whole bunch of sympathetic, and very funny, German characters. Marlene Dietrich had some roles in American films that were sympathetic - and she is about as German as it gets. Same goes for Max Von Sydow, Peter Lorre, Boris Karlof, Uta Hagen, Horst Bucholz and others who were cast in American films where being German was not considered a negative, despite the fact that their country of origin was obvious. Granted, most of those roles were generic in nationality, and not expressly pro-German. Then there was RinTinTin - a likeable German Shepard. But in a nutshell - yeah, Germans are the favorite bad guys in American films…on the upside, they do use Germans to portray the strong, virile, rugged opponent (Rocky, Die Hard and 100’s of other action films) so I guess in an odd way, there is an undercurrent of macho-repect for the non-soldier German character in American films, despite the forgone conclusion that the German will eventually be defeated by the American hero starrring in that film. (To be fair, I have seen enough German films to tell you that…ahem…the _Russian_ actor ain’t gonna fare well at the end of those productions.) ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/52 "2004-03-03T00:33:31Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > (To be fair, I have seen enough German films to tell you that…ahem…the _Russian_ actor ain’t gonna fare well at the end of those productions.) Totally stupid question, but what do you mean by that? ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/53 "2004-03-03T00:47:05Z")
> [@kellner](#): > > Totally stupid question, but what do you mean by that? In German films, the Russians are most often the bad guys - either as a sinister background of German war time love stories, or as the evil puppet masters during the Cold War, or as the Russian Mafia in contemporary films. My point is/was, every culture has their traditional bad guy nationality…the US will use Nazis forever, the Germans will portray the Russians as the bad guys, and I am sure there are Greek/Turk bad guy stereotypes, Chinese/Japanese, Irish/British…old enemies may die off, but their legends last for eons in screenplays. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/54 "2004-03-03T09:08:58Z")
Another on:- _Is Paris Burning ?_ where the German commander in charge of Paris refused to instigate Hitler’s orders to destroy the city in August 1944 when the American and Free French troops were just a few miles away. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/55 "2004-03-03T13:56:08Z")
Well, John Wayne wasn’t terribly plausible as a German (he didn’t even try to put on a German accent), but he played one very sympathetically in “The Sea Chase.” He’s not a Nazi, just a German freighter captain trying to get his ship home, through waters controlled by the British. Eventually, the British sink his ship, but as he goes down, he hoists his flag- not a swastika, mind you, but the old imperial war flag, of the Kaiser’s era. [http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0048593/](http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0048593/) ---
**Author:** ![Gumbercules](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gumbercules](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gumbercules)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/56 "2004-03-03T14:15:55Z")
> [@mkl12](#): > > I’ve got one who is not from a world war II movie: > Nightcrawler in X-Men 2 Damn, beat me to it! ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990/57 "2004-03-03T16:21:09Z")
Someone mentioned **Caberat** earlier and most assuredly it does not have any really sympathic characters that are Germans. The main German is a Nazi who has his way with both the male and female leads, the second featured German is a widow who dumps her boyfriend because he is Jewish (granted, she feels bad about it). OK, OK, The Jewish butcher who gets dumped and beat up is German even though none of the other Germans considered him to be so. Two films that came to mind (besides a number of others already mentioned) were **The Odessa File** , granted there were some bad Germans but the lead was clearly good and **The Longest Day** which like **Is Paris Burning?** has more of a documentry feel to it and the German characters don’t give the impression of being evil. Even though they were Austrian and not German, I suppose you could consider the Von Trapp family in **The Sound of Music** as sympathatic Germans, well at least sympathic tutonic types… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-films-with-sympathetic-german-characters/231990.md?page=2)