Sonja (Hampe Faustman) - Fairly lukewarm execution of daring themes. I always enjoy Sture Lagerwall's screen presence though, he's quite menacing in this one.
Titanic (Werner Klingler, Herbert Selpin) - Sybille Schmitz hot. Not much else going for it.
Selpin was chosen by Goebbels to direct Titanic, intended by the Minister to be both a blockbuster hit and effective anti-British propaganda. The story of the doomed ship was re-written by Walter Zerlett-Olfenius to put blame on J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, and his British and American capitalist backers who, according to the screenplay, wanted the ship to make the passage as quickly as possible, no matter what the danger was to the passengers, in order to gain advantage in the line's competition with the Cunard Line, and thereby to make as much money as they could. A German character was also introduced who warned about the danger the ship was in by traveling so quickly.
Beginning in May, 1942, exterior scenes were shot at the German-occupied Polish Baltic Sea port of Gdynia (renamed Gotenhafen), on board SS Cap Arcona, a passenger liner that eventually shared Titanic's fate; it was sunk a few days before the end of World War II by the Royal Air Force on May 3, 1945, with loss of life more than three times than that on the actual Titanic. The ship had been turned into a prison ship and filled with Jewish inmates that, according to one hypothesis, the Nazis had put there in hopes that the ship would be destroyed by the British.
After one week of troubled shooting on Cap Arcona, with the Allies bombing not far away,[2] Herbert Selpin called a crisis meeting where he made unflattering comments about the Kriegsmarine officers who were supposed to be marine consultants for the film, but were more interested in molesting female cast members.[6] Selpin's close friend and the co-writer of the script, Walter Zerlett-Olfenius, reported him to the Gestapo, and Selpin was promptly arrested and personally questioned by Joseph Goebbels, who was the driving force behind the Titanic project. Selpin, however, did not retract his statement – infuriating Goebbels, since the Propaganda Minister had personally chosen Selpin to direct his propaganda epic. Within 24 hours of his arrest, Selpin was found hanged in his jail cell, which was ruled a suicide.[7] However, in reality, Goebbels had arranged for Selpin to be hanged and the hanging framed as a suicide.[8] The cast and crew were angry at the attempt to cover up Selpin's obvious murder and attempted to retaliate, but Goebbels countered them by issuing a proclamation stating that anyone who shunned Zerlett-Olfenius, who had reported Selpin, would answer to him personally.[8] The unfinished film, on which the production costs were spiralling wildly out of control, was in the end completed by an uncredited Werner Klingler.
But Goebbels banned its playing in Germany altogether, stating that the German people – who were at that point going through almost nightly Allied bombing raids – were less than enthusiastic about seeing a film that portrayed mass death and panic.[12][3][2] The Nazi leadership was also displeased with the manner in which the fictional character Petersen critiqued his superiors, which they regarded to be at odds with the Führerprinzip which demanded Germans unquestioningly obey the orders of their superiors.
(even if it has made me currently only want to watch soviet silents, contemporary films and those made by lesbians)