A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Douglas Sirk

Writers:

Orin Jannings (writer)
Erich Maria Remarque (novel)

Release Date:

15 September 1958 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | War

Tagline:

Born out of the blazing passions of war!

Plot:

In 1944, a company of German soldiers on the Russian front are numbed by the horrors and hardships of...

Plot Keywords:

Soldier | WWII | Nazi | Melodrama | Foreign Language Adaptation

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 2 nominations

Cast

John Gavin	...	Ernst Graeber
Liselotte Pulver	...	Elizabeth Kruse Graeber (as Lilo Pulver)
Jock Mahoney	...	Immerman
Don DeFore	...	Hermann Boettcher
Keenan Wynn	...	Reuter
Erich Maria Remarque	...	Professor Pohlmann
Dieter Borsche	...	Captain Rahe
Barbara Rütting	...	Woman Guerrilla
Thayer David	...	Oscar Binding
Charles Régnier	...	Joseph
Dorothea Wieck	...	Frau Lieser
Kurt Meisel	...	Heini
Agnes Windeck	...	Frau Witte
Clancy Cooper	...	Sauer
John Van Dreelen	...	Political Officer
Klaus Kinski	...	Gestapo Lieutenant
Alice Treff	...	Frau Langer
Alexander Engel	...	Mad Air Raid Warden
Jim Hutton	...	Hirschland (as Dana J. Hutton)
Bengt Lindström	...	Steinbrenner
Wolf Harnisch	...	Sergeant Muecke
Karl Ludwig Lindt	...	Dr. Karl Fresenburg
Lisa Helwig	...	Frau Kleinert
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Paul Frees	...	Several characters (voice) (uncredited)
Alexander Welbat	...	Otto Binding (uncredited)
Ralf Wolter	...	Feldmann, the taylor (uncredited)

Directed by
Douglas Sirk

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Orin Jannings		writer
Erich Maria Remarque		novel

Produced by
Robert Arthur	....	producer

Original Music by
Miklós Rózsa

Cinematography by
Russell Metty

Film Editing by
Ted J. Kent

Art Direction by
Alexander Golitzen
Alfred Sweeney

Set Decoration by
Russell A. Gausman

Costume Design by
Bill Thomas

Makeup Department
Bud Westmore	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Norman Deming	....	unit production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Michael Braun	....	assistant director
Joseph E. Kenney	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Leslie I. Carey	....	sound
Vernon W. Kramer	....	sound

Special Effects by
Whitey McMahon	....	special effects
Clifford Stine	....	special effects

Camera and Electrical Department
Clifford Stine	....	special photography

Music Department
Eugene Zador	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Heinz Götze	....	assistant: Mr. Deming
Herman Ulbricht	....	technical advisor: military
Eva Ebner	....	script supervisor (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Universal International Pictures (UI)

Distributors

• Universal Pictures (1958) (USA) (theatrical)
• Universal Pictures (1958) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Argentina Video Home (2009) (Argentina) (DVD)
• Carlotta Films (2007) (France) (DVD)
• Kartes Video (19??) (USA) (VHS) (pan/scan)

Also Known As:

Will o' the Wisp

Runtime:

132 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German | Russian

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System) | 4-Track Stereo

Certification:

West Germany:12 (f) | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-16 (cut) (1959) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Berlin, Germany

Company:

Universal International Pictures (UI)

Trivia:

Douglas Sirk and Erich Maria Remarque became close friends during the shooting. Later, in Switzerland, they were even neighbors.

Quotes:

Professor Pohlmann: Without doubt, there would be no need for faith.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Assis dans le noir - Wesley Strick parle du secret de Douglas Sirk (2007) (V)

Soundtrack:

A TIME TO LOVE

Germans were humans too.....

...in this time of generalizations and terminally low attention spans (not to say inexistent historical memory) people who have been the hollywoodesque cartoonish image of all 1930/40s Germans to be goose-stepping-order-barking-black-uniformed-ss-genocidal-murders could have their insight skills sharpened a bit more by this movie directed by Detlef Sierck (his real name). Actually lots of people in the 3rd Reich must have felt like Sierck himself, who obviously loved his fatherland but hated the Nazis and the way they tried to rape and pervert the very idea of the 'german nation' to their twisted ends...and those who were not lucky enough to expatriate like he did would have lived like the protagonists of this drama, suffering through an unwanted war having to witness both the cruelty of the regime AND the devastations from the war that the regime forced upon its people (the political prisoners forced to clear rubble from the air raids is a TELLING scene indeed!). The only thing that upset me a bit was the censorship forced on the filmmaker which in several scenes has to resort to silly 'visual tricks' to 'avoid' showing swastikas (a tube blocking our sight over the Military Police gorget in one of the first scenes, the queer angle at which a NSDAP member crosses our p.o.v. in the restaurant scene so we can't see the front of his armband)....now think a bit...if a catastrophe strikes and leaves this movie the ONLY proof of semi-historical value regarding WW2 the historians of the future will be oblivious of the centrepiece of nazi imagery...how STUPID is that???

Down with censorship I say, either sexual, political, intellectual et al...