NR | 1 h 57 min | Drama | 1941
Director John Cromwell’s film, set in 1937 Europe at the height of Nazism in Germany, depicts how political refugees differ markedly from economic refugees.
First, many political refugees often forsake present or potential prosperity in their home country. Educated or wealthy Jews may flee because of their ethnicity, others because of their beliefs, such as influential Germans fleeing because they’re anti-Nazi.
As Germany prepared to annex Austria, many Germans were made stateless. This included non-Jew conscientious objectors, who were thrown into concentration camps within Germany, and Jews, who were suddenly deprived of citizenship. Both groups lost their passports (either seized or forcibly surrendered), were declared illegals, and faced arrest or deportation to other European countries. In these other countries, they had to secure fake foreign passports at great cost, or be deported back to Germany to face further persecution.
Middle-aged war veteran, anti-Nazi Josef Steiner (Fredric March) escapes a concentration camp and befriends fellow prisoner, Ludwig Kern (Glenn Ford). Caught without passports, German authorities deport Kern to Czechoslovakia and Steiner to Austria.
Steiner longs for his wife Marie (Frances Dee) back in Germany, but now rootless, ends up working in an Austrian amusement park as a mind reader, mechanic, barker, and dishwasher.
In Czechoslovakia, Kern, a Jew, falls for another Jewish refugee, Ruth Holland (Margaret Sullavan); together they brave trials in Austria, France, Switzerland, and Germany.
Nazi agents tempt Kern and Steiner with the superficial freedom of a passport, if only they’d betray themselves or their friends. Both pay a price for the authentic freedom they seek: the freedom to choose according to their conscience.
Cromwell’s film, inspired by anti-Nazi German writer Erich Maria Remarque’s novel “Flotsam,” shows how refugees are like flotsam, adrift in a seemingly shoreless ocean, or washed up on a beach, belonging to no one, claimed by no one. Remarque himself fled Germany, first for Switzerland and later for America, where he became a naturalized citizen, and his novel shows how a common opposition against totalitarianism makes kindred spirits of entire strangers.
Barring a few flashbacks, Cromwell tells his story linearly. Shorn of melodrama, it mirrors the tediousness and tenuousness of refugee existence: some characters on edge and exhausted from fleeing regularly, others investing time and energy in ensuring that they stay that way.
Freedom Disguised
Ford, at 25, is convincing enough as a 19-year-old and portrays the sense of drift that Jews felt at the time; watch for a fleeting flashback where, in happier times, he and his dad sneak up on his mom to present her with birthday gifts. March is superb as a man of compassion, character, conviction, and courage. And Sullavan is vulnerable as a woman caught between betrayals from her past (her earlier boyfriend turns out to be a bigot) and a future (with the idealistic Kern) that promises to reward her trust.In one scene, German agent Brenner (Erich von Stroheim) presents the captive Steiner with a choice. He’ll restore Steiner’s passport if he’ll only betray the accomplices who helped him escape the concentration camp. If he complies, he can go back to Marie in Germany, and travel across Europe as he pleases. Steiner’s refusal to comply suggests that Brenner’s poser isn’t what it seems: a choice between freedom and captivity. Instead, it’s a choice between captivity of one kind and captivity of another kind.
Brenner coaxes, “The necessity of the state is above the code of the individual.” Steiner’s rebuke says that under totalitarianism, freedom is not what the state says it is, but what its upright individuals say it is. So, Steiner exercises his freedom by refusing to pick from Brenner’s so-called choices. To Steiner, freedom lies not in choice itself, but in choosing love, courage, and sacrifice above everything else.
In one flashback, Steiner finds Marie in a crowded marketplace and sneaks up behind her without drawing the suspicion of Nazi spies and informants. Whispering as he walks, he begs her to use his political views as an excuse to divorce him, to protect herself from Nazi victimization. Marie keeps walking ahead, listening but not daring to speak or lock eyes with him for fear of exposing him. Yet, her pained face speaks volumes.
Holland explains to Kern why she’s afraid of intimacy because she’d rather not tie someone else down, whose fate then turns out to be as uncertain as hers; Kern tells her that the worse off they are and the less they have, the more important it is to find companionship and to find someone who cares, “just one.” Kern understands this better when Steiner, discovering that Marie is sick back home, decides to risk capture again just to see her.
