Lilli Marlene (film)

Last updated

Lilli Marlene
Lilli Marlene Film Poster.jpg
US cinema poster
Directed by Arthur Crabtree
Written byLeslie Wood
Screenplay byLeslie Wood
Produced byWilliam J. Gell
Starring Lisa Daniely
Hugh McDermott
Stanley Baker
Cinematography Jack Asher
Edited byLister Laurance
Music by Stanley Black
Production
company
William Gell Productions
Distributed by Monarch Film Corporation (UK)
RKO Radio Pictures (US)
Release dates
  • 8 December 1950 (1950-12-08)(UK) [1]
  • 25 July 1951 (1951-07-25)(US) [2]
Running time
85 minutes [3]
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Lilli Marlene is a 1950 British war film aimed for the US market and directed by Arthur Crabtree. It stars Lisa Daniely, Hugh McDermott, and Richard Murdoch. Stanley Baker is seen in one of his early support roles.

Contents

Plot

A French girl named Lilli Marlene, working in her uncle's café in Benghazi, Libya, turns out to be the girl that the popular German wartime song Lili Marleen had been written for before the war, so both the British and the Germans try to use her for propaganda purposes – especially as it turns out that she can sing as well. The Germans try to snatch her at one point, but don't succeed, and she performs several times for the British troops and also appears in radio broadcasts to the USA, arranged by Steve, an American war correspondent embedded with the British Eighth Army, who eventually becomes her boyfriend.

Later, the Germans successfully kidnap her in Cairo and she is taken to Berlin, where she is interrogated and repeatedly told that she had been tortured and brainwashed by the British to think that she was French, when she actually is German. Once the Germans think that she has been transformed into a loyal Nazi, they set her to make broadcasts in English for the Third Reich. Her old British friends, and especially Steve, are very disappointed in her.

After the war, she reappears in London during a big reunion for members of the Eighth Army. She manages to convince Steve and a few of her other Eighth Army friends that she never betrayed the British; however, British security agents try to arrest her. Steve and another old friend, Berry, take off with her in their broadcasting van, chased by the security people. They drive to an address in London that she had been given by the German colonel in charge of her broadcasts, in case she ever went to London and was in need of help. When they get there, she finds that the German colonel lives in it. It turns out that he is actually a British intelligence officer who was working undercover in Berlin during the war. He informs them and the security people that Lilli was never a traitor, and that, in all her communications, there were encoded messages to the British intelligence services back in London.

Once they know the truth, Steve and Berry take her back to the reunion, where everybody is told that Lilli never was a traitor. She sings the Lili Marleen song for all of them and afterwards she and Steve kiss.

Main cast

Follow-up film

Three years later, Arthur Crabtree made a follow-up film with the same actors playing Marlene and Steve: The Wedding of Lilli Marlene . [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Murdoch</span> English actor

Richard Bernard Murdoch was an English actor and entertainer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lili Marleen</span> German song by Norbert Schultz (text by Hans Leip)

"Lili Marleen" is a German love song that became popular during World War II throughout Europe and the Mediterranean among both Axis and Allied troops. Written in 1915 as a poem, the song was published in 1937 and was first recorded by Lale Andersen in 1939 as "Das Mädchen unter der Laterne". The song is also well known on a version performed by Marlene Dietrich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lale Andersen</span> German singer

Lale Andersen was a German chanson singer-songwriter[note a] born in Lehe .[note b] She is best known for her interpretation of the song "Lili Marleen" in 1939, which by 1941 transcended the conflict to become World War II's biggest international hit. Popular with both the Axis and the Allies, Andersen's original recording spawned versions, by the end of the War, in most of the major languages of Europe, and by some of the most popular artists in their respective countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman Baillie-Stewart</span> British soldier and Nazi sympathiser (1909–1966)

Norman Baillie-Stewart was a British army officer who was arrested in 1933 for espionage, and subsequently convicted and imprisoned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Amery</span> British Nazi collaborator (1912–1945)

John Amery was a British fascist and Nazi collaborator during World War II. He was the originator of the British Free Corps, a volunteer Waffen-SS unit composed of former British and Dominion prisoners of war.

<i>Freedom Radio</i> 1941 British propaganda film directed by Anthony Asquith

Freedom Radio is a 1941 British propaganda film directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Clive Brook, Diana Wynyard, Raymond Huntley and Derek Farr. It is set in Nazi Germany during the Second World War and concerns an underground German resistance group who run a radio station broadcasting against the totalitarian Third Reich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lilli Palmer</span> German actress (1914–1986)

Lilli Palmer was a German actress and writer. After beginning her career in British films in the 1930s, she would later transition to major Hollywood productions, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in But Not for Me (1959).

Radio Belgrade is a state-owned and operated radio station in Belgrade, Serbia. It has four different programs, a precious archive of several hundreds of thousands records, magnetic tapes and CDs, and is part of Radio Television of Serbia.

<i>Wake Me When the War Is Over</i> 1969 television film directed by Gene Nelson

Wake Me When the War Is Over is a 1969 American made-for-television comedy film directed by Gene Nelson and starring Ken Berry and Eva Gabor. It first aired as the ABC Movie of the Week on October 14, 1969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bild Lilli doll</span> Discontinued West German fashion doll line

The Bild Lilli doll was a West German line of fashion doll launched by Greiner & Hausser GmbH on August 12, 1955 and produced until 1964. Its design was based on the comic-strip character Lilli, created by Reinhard Beuthien for the tabloid newspaper Bild. The doll was made of polystyrene, came in two sizes, and had an available wardrobe of 1950s fashion. The Lilli doll was copied, and altered to some degree, for Mattel upon the direction of that company's co-founder, Ruth Handler. Mattel acquired the rights to Bild Lilli in 1964, and production of the German doll ceased in favor of Mattel's new vinyl doll, which they called Barbie.

Arthur Crabtree was a British cinematographer and film director. He directed films with comedians such as Will Hay, the Crazy Gang and Arthur Askey and several of the Gainsborough Melodramas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucie Mannheim</span> German singer and actress

Lucie Mannheim was a German singer and actress.

<i>Lili Marleen</i> (film) 1980 film

Lili Marleen is a 1981 West German drama film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder that stars Hanna Schygulla, Giancarlo Giannini, and Mel Ferrer. Set in the time of the Third Reich, the film recounts the love affair between a German singer who becomes the darling of the nation, based on Lale Andersen, and a Swiss conductor, based on Rolf Liebermann, who is active in saving his fellow Jews. Though the screenplay uses the autobiographical novel Der Himmel hat viele Farben by Lale Andersen, her last husband, Arthur Beul, said the film bears little relation to her real life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Daniely</span> British actress

Lisa Daniely was a British film and television actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Jaffe</span> German actor (1902–1974)

Carl Jaffe was a German actor. Jaffe trained on the stage in his native Hamburg, Kassel and Wiesbaden before moving to Berlin, where his career began to develop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marlene Dietrich discography</span>

Marlene Dietrich's recording career spanned sixty years, from 1928 until 1988. She introduced the songs "Falling in Love Again " and "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have". She first recorded her version of "Lili Marlene" in 1945.

<i>The Wedding of Lilli Marlene</i> 1953 film by Arthur Crabtree

The Wedding of Lilli Marlene is a 1953 British drama film directed by Arthur Crabtree and starring Lisa Daniely, Hugh McDermott and Sid James. It was made at Southall Studios with sets designed by the art director Ray Simm. It was produced as a sequel to the 1950 film Lilli Marlene.

Helene Sensburg (born 1914, by Canadian and other Allied troops nicknamed Mary of Arnhem was a radio propagandist in the German-occupied Netherlands noteworthy for making Nazi broadcasts primarily aimed at Canadian and American soldiers stalled south of the Rhine in the final year of World War II. Born in Germany, she worked for an oil company in England for ten years and returned when WWII broke out in 1939. Speaking excellent English, she found a job with the Deutscher Rundfunk. In October 1944 she was transferred to the German military propaganda section, which operated a propaganda program identified as "Radio Arnhem," but in fact broadcast from Hilversum, The Netherlands. Sensburg's husband was a German war captain who was captured by Russian troops. Created a radio star by Nazi-German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, as a successor to Lilli Marlene, and endowed with a "silvery voice," she provided disinformation and tried to lure soldiers away from the fights. As noted in a British newspaper in late 1944: "When the BBC broadcasts its news bulletin the Arnhem station swings into its news in English without advising its listeners that they were getting the Nazi product." Her radio propaganda stand-in was Gerda Markov, who had lived in the United States.

Pearl Joyce Vardon was a British broadcaster of Nazi propaganda during World War II. In 1946 she was convicted of an offence under the Defence Regulations and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.

<i>Like Once Lili Marleen</i> 1956 film

Like Once Lili Marleen is a 1956 West German romantic drama film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Adrian Hoven, Marianne Hold and Claus Holm. The title refers to the popular wartime song "Lili Marleen" popularised by Lale Anderson, who performs it at a concert at the end of the film.

References

  1. "Marble Arch Pavilion: Lilli Marlene". The Times. 8 December 1950. p. 2.
  2. "RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. Trade Showings". Motion Picture Daily. 18 July 1951. p. 3. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
  3. "BBFC: Lilli Marlene".
  4. "Lilli Marlene (1950) - Arthur Crabtree | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related | AllMovie" via www.allmovie.com.