Tug of (Cold) War
This weekend's review: The Man Between.
The Man Between looked right up my alley, since it had three words in the summary that were guaranteed to pique my interest; “thriller” and “James Mason”. In addition, the summary compared it to The Third Man, and while that’s not a huge favorite of mine, it’s got some good cinematography and atmosphere, which sounded like they’d compliment the other selling points. I am sorry to report, therefore, that the movie falls down on pretty much every one of those points.
Set in that brief period between the end of WWII and the building of the Berlin Wall, the story revolves around Susanne Mallison (Claire Bloom), a young woman from Britain who comes to Germany to visit her brother Martin (Geoffrey Toone), an army medic who’s helping to oversee rebuilding efforts in West Germany. He’s married a German woman, Bettina (Hildegard Knef), and while she’s polite, Susanne can’t help but notice she acts shifty at times. The reason for this becomes more apparent (to the audience, at least), when the two women pay a visit to the Eastern side of the city and run into Ivo Kern (Mason), a friend of Bettina’s from before the war who has to live in the Eastern sector but really wants to get permission to move to the Western side. Susanne finds herself attracted to Ivo and vice-versa, but of course, he’s got secrets and connections that could jeopardize the relationship. It all culminates with Susanne trapped on the Eastern side and trying to cross the border in the middle of the night. There’s plenty of opportunities for drama and suspense here, but while the movie takes them, they generally aren’t executed well.
I think the reason the movie mostly winds up falling flat is the way the first half of the movie is handled. It’s supposed to be the setup of all the relationships and conflicts that will make the second half (the border crossing) more tense, but instead it’s a mixed bag. Part of this may be due to changing times. Back in 1953, the audience might have had a clearer understanding of who the shady people Ivo has contacts with in the Eastern sector were and what their purpose and motivation was. Here in the 2010’s, we can hazard a guess that they’re Communist, and that’s about it. Even if you just accept the surface level “these people are bad and Ivo doesn’t want to work with them anymore” explanation, though, there are still problems. I was particularly frustrated by Susanne’s characterization. Early on, she seemed pretty observant of Bettina’s odd behavior and tried to be careful about drawing attention to herself-she watches Bettina’s actions and reactions in a mirror while pretending to be looking at something else, and at another point she walks into Martin’s house during an argument, listens a bit, then slams the door to make it appear she’s just gotten back. But a little later on, she makes very stupid mistakes, like giving out her address to someone who claims to be Ivo’s friend when Ivo didn’t seem too happy to see him or completely believing Ivo’s stories even after seeing Bettina’s wariness around him, not to mention getting a direct warning that he’s trouble. You can argue that it’s because she’s attracted to him and that’s clouding her judgment, but while it’s a reasonable explanation, it doesn’t jibe with what we saw earlier, and is therefore annoying. Once we get to the second half of the movie, things are a little better. There’s some decent suspense moments, but nothing of Hitchcock caliber, and the pacing doesn’t feel quite right. Though it doesn’t help that the acting is bland all the way through, making it hard to get invested. Even Mason doesn’t feel like he’s bringing his “A” game, though part of that may be the fact that he needed to concentrate on maintaining a German accent. Sadly, his natural vocal cadences and a German accent don’t mix very well, another reason it’s hard to focus on the plot. And yet people kept casting him as a German for some reason…
As for cinematography and atmosphere, it’s mostly a letdown in that department too. Some of the night scenes are okay, especially when there’s snowfall, but nothing overly stood out to me. And I’m sure they were going for an oppressive, sinister atmosphere, but this is somewhat hampered by the fact that it’s not entirely clear why things are oppressive and sinister. Plus, one of the movie’s recurring motifs in that department is a boy on a bicycle who keeps popping up in both sectors, observing the action and then riding away, presumably to report on what he’s seen. I’m sure he’s meant to be symbolic of something in addition to being a plot device and atmosphere generator, but in practice, his presence is sometimes effective, sometimes mildly frustrating as we wonder what the point is. But that frustration is nothing compared to the ending of the movie. On the one hand, I’m not too surprised it ends the way it does, given the rules of the various production codes. On the other, the movie just ends after one particular dramatic moment, instead of giving us a coda showing how the characters feel about what happened. Given two of the plot elements that had come up earlier in the movie, you’d think they’d include some conversations or significant closeups of people’s faces as they hide their true feelings in order to to resolve those elements. Instead, you’re left confused and annoyed. Though at least that’s consistent with a lot of the movie.
As you can probably guess, I don’t recommend this movie. It does serve as a bit of a time capsule for what things were like in Berlin in the early days of the Cold War, but that’s about all it has going for it. Best to leave this one alone and seek out other movies that capture what you’re looking for.
The Man Between looked right up my alley, since it had three words in the summary that were guaranteed to pique my interest; “thriller” and “James Mason”. In addition, the summary compared it to The Third Man, and while that’s not a huge favorite of mine, it’s got some good cinematography and atmosphere, which sounded like they’d compliment the other selling points. I am sorry to report, therefore, that the movie falls down on pretty much every one of those points.
Set in that brief period between the end of WWII and the building of the Berlin Wall, the story revolves around Susanne Mallison (Claire Bloom), a young woman from Britain who comes to Germany to visit her brother Martin (Geoffrey Toone), an army medic who’s helping to oversee rebuilding efforts in West Germany. He’s married a German woman, Bettina (Hildegard Knef), and while she’s polite, Susanne can’t help but notice she acts shifty at times. The reason for this becomes more apparent (to the audience, at least), when the two women pay a visit to the Eastern side of the city and run into Ivo Kern (Mason), a friend of Bettina’s from before the war who has to live in the Eastern sector but really wants to get permission to move to the Western side. Susanne finds herself attracted to Ivo and vice-versa, but of course, he’s got secrets and connections that could jeopardize the relationship. It all culminates with Susanne trapped on the Eastern side and trying to cross the border in the middle of the night. There’s plenty of opportunities for drama and suspense here, but while the movie takes them, they generally aren’t executed well.
I think the reason the movie mostly winds up falling flat is the way the first half of the movie is handled. It’s supposed to be the setup of all the relationships and conflicts that will make the second half (the border crossing) more tense, but instead it’s a mixed bag. Part of this may be due to changing times. Back in 1953, the audience might have had a clearer understanding of who the shady people Ivo has contacts with in the Eastern sector were and what their purpose and motivation was. Here in the 2010’s, we can hazard a guess that they’re Communist, and that’s about it. Even if you just accept the surface level “these people are bad and Ivo doesn’t want to work with them anymore” explanation, though, there are still problems. I was particularly frustrated by Susanne’s characterization. Early on, she seemed pretty observant of Bettina’s odd behavior and tried to be careful about drawing attention to herself-she watches Bettina’s actions and reactions in a mirror while pretending to be looking at something else, and at another point she walks into Martin’s house during an argument, listens a bit, then slams the door to make it appear she’s just gotten back. But a little later on, she makes very stupid mistakes, like giving out her address to someone who claims to be Ivo’s friend when Ivo didn’t seem too happy to see him or completely believing Ivo’s stories even after seeing Bettina’s wariness around him, not to mention getting a direct warning that he’s trouble. You can argue that it’s because she’s attracted to him and that’s clouding her judgment, but while it’s a reasonable explanation, it doesn’t jibe with what we saw earlier, and is therefore annoying. Once we get to the second half of the movie, things are a little better. There’s some decent suspense moments, but nothing of Hitchcock caliber, and the pacing doesn’t feel quite right. Though it doesn’t help that the acting is bland all the way through, making it hard to get invested. Even Mason doesn’t feel like he’s bringing his “A” game, though part of that may be the fact that he needed to concentrate on maintaining a German accent. Sadly, his natural vocal cadences and a German accent don’t mix very well, another reason it’s hard to focus on the plot. And yet people kept casting him as a German for some reason…
As for cinematography and atmosphere, it’s mostly a letdown in that department too. Some of the night scenes are okay, especially when there’s snowfall, but nothing overly stood out to me. And I’m sure they were going for an oppressive, sinister atmosphere, but this is somewhat hampered by the fact that it’s not entirely clear why things are oppressive and sinister. Plus, one of the movie’s recurring motifs in that department is a boy on a bicycle who keeps popping up in both sectors, observing the action and then riding away, presumably to report on what he’s seen. I’m sure he’s meant to be symbolic of something in addition to being a plot device and atmosphere generator, but in practice, his presence is sometimes effective, sometimes mildly frustrating as we wonder what the point is. But that frustration is nothing compared to the ending of the movie. On the one hand, I’m not too surprised it ends the way it does, given the rules of the various production codes. On the other, the movie just ends after one particular dramatic moment, instead of giving us a coda showing how the characters feel about what happened. Given two of the plot elements that had come up earlier in the movie, you’d think they’d include some conversations or significant closeups of people’s faces as they hide their true feelings in order to to resolve those elements. Instead, you’re left confused and annoyed. Though at least that’s consistent with a lot of the movie.
As you can probably guess, I don’t recommend this movie. It does serve as a bit of a time capsule for what things were like in Berlin in the early days of the Cold War, but that’s about all it has going for it. Best to leave this one alone and seek out other movies that capture what you’re looking for.