Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Kolberg (1945)

Perhaps the greatest movie folly of all time this film, available in full on Google video, tells the tale through the eyes of Goebells of a German town's resistance to Napoleon. Intended to be an epic along the lines of Gone With The WInd it was shot in Agfacolour and used thousands of troops. It was a hugely expensive undertaking. When it was premiered it was already all over for Germany with most theatres already bombed out of existence. Lots of absurdities abound in the making of this film like the 100 railway wagon loads of salt being sent to Pomerania to shoot snow scenes in the summer - anyway if you just want to watch the 'money shots' or the battle scenes they start at 1 hour 8 minutes in. If you don't speak German or French the synopsis is on the wiki. You have to laugh really - it's the last thing that you'd think would be needed in 1945 - a war film!
Wiki on the movie here