Posted on 12/29/2008 12:21:59 PM PST by Victory111
Cruise is just fine as Stauffenberg, keeping his signature quirks and grin in check. He generates enough charisma to reflect why people were willing to follow Stauffenberg quite literally into Hell, without turning the film into Tom Cruise Takes on Hitler. Whatever problems people have with his performance, they brought with them into the theater. I suspect if mainstream media darling George Clooney had made the very same film, he would be no better in the role, but the tone of the critical commentary would be very different. David Bamber is a very scary Hitler who resists the urge to chew the scenery. In a very tense scene when Stauffenberg needs Der Fuerher’s signature on his changes to the Operation Valkyrie plan, Bamber/Hitler’s muttered non sequiturs about Wagner’s operas are far more chilling than the usual showy maniacal rants brought to the role.
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It was a very historically accurate and well-done movie. Cruise was the film’s weakest link, but if his star power gets more people to watch an important movie, then so be it.
Stauffenberg was no doubt a hero, though one would have to acknowledge that, by July, 1944, anyone from the Prussian aristocracy like Stauffenberg would have a huge personal stake in Germany working out some kind of peace arrangement with the USSR. At that time, the Soviet’s Operation Bagration was chewing up German divisions and spitting them out in Poland. The writing was very much on the wall at that point, and it was clear that any Prussian aristocrats wouldn’t fare very well under Soviet rule.
Stauffenberg was Bavarian, not Prussian.
I thought it was a very good movie altogether. I don’t shiv a git about the actors that portrayed the individuals that were involved in the action, they did a good job IMO.
“Stauffenberg was Bavarian, not Prussian.”
I stand corrected, though it’s true that the center of the German military aristocracy to which he belonged was in Prussia and that was on the verge of extinction in July 1944. So I’m not sure how much he was motivated by humanitarian concerns and how much he cared about preserving the German military aristocracy. Either way he clearly had enough guts for 10 men to attempt a plot like that.
I think your larger point is valid enough for debate; I just think most Bavarians would have a fit at any confusion of themselves with Prussians.
I watched a program last night that gave the history of “Valkyrie”. I couldn’t understand, and it wasn’t explicitely stated, why they came up with all these elaborate plans. Did Hitler have all those who met with him searched and dis-armed? Surely, someone had to have had a pistol.
It was extremely difficult during the war for non-Nazis to get in the same room with Hitler with anything resembling a weapon. A small pistol might have been smuggled in, but getting close enough to be certain of a fatal shot would have been nearly impossible.
That’s why the conspirators settled on explosives.
B*ll Sh*t!!!
These officers were in deep enough to be part of the inner circle. close enough to plant a bomb at a major strategic meeting with Hitler. They were okay with everything until the wheels starting coming off the wagon. They were scrambling so that they could cut a better deal. This is just another attempt to re-write history,
Beck had been conspiring against the Nazis since 1938.
Some of the conspirators were indeed good Germans and good men.
I read last week (a review of something that was on the History channel, I think) that there were lots of plots against Hitler.
I was surprised by that. I knew since about 1958 that von Stauffenberg had been involved in a unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life. I wrote a short report on it for a history class. But, I never heard before that there were over 100 plots to kill Hitler. Many of them were never actually attempted.
Interesting that the Roosevelt Administration deliberately squelched all news about it so that the German people would have no one to be proud of. Churchill disagreed with that decision.
One of the causes for the Germans being so ready to accept Hitler was the stupid WWI punishment of the Germans to the point that they were starving. Intelligent people ought to know better to totally humiliate a group of people.
On the other hand, post-WWII was a truly magnificent endeavor on the part of the western allies. Some German friends of mine told me (back in 1980) that their family would have starved after WWII if the Americans had not been so generous to them. They were so gratefule for everything the USA did and was doing to protect them from the Soviet Union. These were Rheinlanders, not the socialists in the north and east of the country.
At least the West Germans got it right. They did actually teach their children about Hitler and his evil ways, and also worked hard to build up a democracy and a good economy. Now the socialists are destroying it.
Overall, I thought the film was tautly paced and well done, and as historically accurate as anything to come out of Hollywood. They even included the fact that Lt von Haeften threw himself in front of Stauffenberg to take the bullets of the firing squad. My biggest gripe with the flick is that they wholly neglected the fact that Stauffenberg’s belief in his Catholic faith was a significant factor in his opposition to Hitler. But I suppose it is asking too much of Hollywood to give ANY credit to a religion that implacably opposes the Holocaust of the unborn.
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