1959 - VERBOTEN, Sam Fuller's love story features teenage Nazi punks

The Director is Mr. Unsubtle, Sam Fuller. The film is about the American Army's challenges with the occupation of Germany after World War II. The film was shot on a very low budget, it is creepy and contemporary. Verboten starts with three American soldiers on patrol in a small German town, the soundtrack blasts Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as one by one each soldier is shot. The third soldier survives hidden by a German woman who he will eventually fall in love with and marry. He takes a job helping to feed hungry Germans, all hell breaks loose.

 

Fuller touches on a lot of different issues, homegrown terrorism, the role of a civilian population governed by a totalitarian government, Nazi concentration camps, attacks on American troops by underground Nazi political groups. He doesn't do it with intelligent discussions of these issues, he bangs the viewer over the head with a shovel to get their attention first.

It's well known that Fuller was an infantry man during World War II serving with the 1st Infantry, also known as The Big Red One. Fuller was not a guy to put up with a lot of bullshit in his movies so he doesn't mess around, he shows former Nazi's organizing terrorist cells called "Werwolfs." Fuller makes it very clear, he has some sympathy for the German people, but this was also a guy who liberated Jewish concentration camps and he's not about to let the Germans off the hook for that. These Werwolf groups actually existed and apparently the Allied Army didn't fool around when it came to dealing with them. General Eisenhower ordered them shot or thrown into forced labor camps without a trial. The French made them clear mine fields, the Canadians burned down the houses they were living in and the Russians just destroyed entire towns where they were suspected to be living.

 This is not Fuller's best movie, the limitations of the budget and the large amount of stock footage work against it. But this is a very tough emotional film made by a guy who was actually a witness to this part of history.

 93 minutes