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Frieda (film)

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Director
  
Basil Dearden

Music director
  
John D. H. Greenwood

Country
  
United Kingdom

7/10
IMDb

Genre
  
Drama, War

Duration
  

Language
  
English

Frieda (film) movie poster

Release date
  
19 June 1947 (UK)

Writer
  
Angus MacPhail, Ronald Millar (play), Ronald Millar (screenplay)

Screenplay
  
Ronald Millar, Angus MacPhail

Cast
  
David Farrar
(Robert Dawson),
Glynis Johns
(Judy Dawson),
Mai Zetterling
(Frieda),
Flora Robson
(Nell Dawson)

Similar movies
  
The Criminal
,
Blind Date
,
Hell Drivers
,
Payroll
,
The Intimate Stranger
,
The End of the Line

Tagline
  
The film that puts the question - Would YOU take Frieda into YOUR Home?

Frieda is a 1947 British film, directed by Basil Dearden, screenplay by Angus MacPhail and Ronald Millar and was produced by Michael Balcon.

Contents

Synopsis

Frieda (Mai Zetterling) is a German woman who helps English airman Robert (David Farrar) to escape from a German prisoner-of-war camp as the Second World War nears its end. She loves him; he is only grateful to her. In a church between the Russian-German lines however, Robert marries her, so that she may obtain a British passport. Together they eventually arrive in his Oxfordshire home. Frieda meets his family—his mother, his small stepbrother Tony, Judy (Glynis Johns), the attractive widow of Robert's brother, and Aunt Eleanor (Flora Robson), a figure in local politics and vehemently anti-German.

At first the townspeople are bitterly hostile to Frieda and Robert is forced to give up his job as a schoolteacher. Gradually however, the ill will retreats, and she is accepted—though not by Eleanor. She is befriended by Judy, who, unknown to Robert, is now in love with him. As Robert settles into a new life, working with Frieda on a farm, he begins to lose his prisoner-of-war heaviness. He sees Frieda in a new light. But then they see a film dealing with the horror of Bergen-Belsen and Frieda fears their marriage will not survive its revelation of her countrymen's cruelty. But Robert clings on to what they have established between them.

Suddenly an ex-German soldier appears—Frieda's brother Richard (Albert Lieven). Thinking he had been killed Frieda is initially overjoyed. He had been captured and allowed to volunteer for the Polish Army. Soon she realizes however that he has remained a Nazi at heart. His wedding present to Frieda—a swastika on a chain. In a pub he is denounced as one of the guards at a concentration camp. To Robert, in private, he admits the truth of this accusation, and even claims that Frieda had known and approved of his actions. They fight, and Robert revolts now against everything German as vile and polluted.

Frieda, fearing that she has lost Robert now, attempts suicide. Just in time, Robert reaches her and the shock brings him to a realisation of what he risked losing. He perceives that his faith in her was justified. Even Aunt Eleanor confesses that her sweeping anti-German bigotry was wrong: "You cannot treat human beings as though they were less than human—without becoming less than human yourself."

Cast

  • David Farrar as Robert
  • Glynis Johns as Judy
  • Mai Zetterling as Frieda
  • Flora Robson as Aunt Eleanor
  • Albert Lieven as Richard
  • Barbara Everest as Mrs.Dawson
  • Gladys Henson as Edith
  • Ray Jackson as Tony
  • Patrick Holt as Alan
  • Aubrey Mallalieu as Irvine
  • Reception

    The film was the ninth most popular movie at the British box office in 1947.

    Re-release

    The film was re-released in 1948 to excellent box office results.

    References

    Frieda (film) Wikipedia
    Frieda (film) IMDb Frieda (film) themoviedb.org