Escape from East Berlin

Based on a true story and directed by Robert Siodmak, "Escape from East Berlin" is an uneven film about a real-life military chauffeur living in East Berlin (played by Don Murray) who, with the help of family and friends, digs a tunnel in order to escape to West Berlin.

It's probable that with several story changes, "Berlin Tunnel 21," made in 1981, is based on the same true story. I found that film far more suspenseful.

However, since the Siodmak film was made around the time that the wall was erected, it captures the atmosphere better. The film begins with a little bit of history, too, which would be interesting to those new to the material.

It looks as if "Escape from East Berlin" was made on a shoestring budget, as some of it seems rushed, and the subplot of Christine Kaufman, as a young woman who hides in the Schroder household and wants to escape with them, seems to have been dropped. Unless I missed it, there is no follow-up as far as her family.

Don Murray heads a German cast that includes Werner Klemperer, and the film was done on location in Berlin. Murray smartly just hints at an accent. Of course one assumes all of these people are actually speaking German.

Certainly this film captures the claustrophobia of those trapped behind the wall and the poor conditions under which they had to live. Definitely worth seeing, though for a nail-biting version of the same story, check out "Berlin Tunnel 21."

This is a film about the essential value of freedom. It tells the story of how 28 people run away from East Germany to West by digging a tunnel under the Belin wall. Filmed shortly after the wall was built, the move succeeds not only in showing the oppressive, almost claustrophobic everyday life in Eastern Germany but also in telling a story in an interesting, almost noir way. As the story begins, we see how Walter Brunner (Werner Klemperer) tries to escape from East Berlin to West by crashing his truck against the wall. We also see how Kurt Schröder (Don Murray) tries to convince him not to do it. He feels fine in east Berlin (at least that's what he says) as he has a comfortable job working as a chauffeur to an east German officer. As the movie goes on we can see how people live in East Berlin (as American point of view). I have found some interesting points in this film that appear in a quite imperceptible and yet poignantly way. People is not only afraid of being controlled or spied by the government itself but also by their neighbors. Although this is not major developed, we can clearly seen how Schröder's neighbor watches almost every movement they make, or how fear the family is when Marga (Maria Tober) speaks with two German soldiers and the family thinks she is reporting them. When the Spanish civil war ended another civil war began: neighbors reporting neighbors to be republican to obtain a gain or simply because they hated them. Human beings at their worst but also at their best, which we can see by helping others and giving them the chance to escape. Having been left apart from Hollywood industry due to communist accusations, Siodmak did not want to make a political film and that's why he made it an intrigue one as well. And he hit it. Surprisingly (or maybe not so) the film was considered a minor one and not a success nor in Western German (where it was found too soft) nor in France (where it was found too propagandistic) but it was in the U.S.A.

I watched the Berlin Wall come down in 1989. This film brings back some haunting memories. The despair of people realizing that they are trapped in the cage called East Berlin. And what we know about the Stasi--the East German secret police--makes me cringe realizing how everybody was spied upon.

Yes, the movie has a happy ending. But, while 28 people found freedom through the tunnel, think of those who lived out their days behind the wall.

Robert Siodmak had nothing to prove when he made "Escape from East Berlin".Maybe his film ,although inspired by real facts ,looks more like fiction,but he knew what he was talking about: Driven away from his land by Goebbels after "Brennendes Geheimnis " in 1933, he took refuge in France where he made at least two classics ("Mollenard" and "Piège" ),then in America where he reached peaks of films noirs ("cry of the city" "spiral staircase" "criss cross" ....).When he returned to Germany ,he depicted his country after the war ("die Ratten" ) without indulgence.Another movie made in France ("L'Affaire Nina B") dealt with Nazi criminals .

Siomak's genius as a film noir past master can still be felt in "escape...." ,notably in the first scenes where the characters seem to be buried alive in walls of stone and barbed wire.A short prologue with a voice over tells us so: "these men and women have done nothing and they are prisoners..."Don Murray looks too American but it's not a big problem.Since 1989,the Wall of shame has fortunately become a thing of the past.Siomak's movie was one of the first thrusts.

I recently saw this movie on television and it was of interest to me because back in August 2006 I visited Germany for the first time and went to Berlin. I was accompanied by German friends who live in Hamburg. One of them was working in Berlin when the Wall fell in 1989.

While in Berlin I toured the Wall museum and of course visited Checkpoint Charlie. I am a baby boomer who grew up during the Cold War and I well remember the TV footage of the Wall and of people trying to escape. Escape from East Berlin may seem rather old-fashioned today but I thought it was a gritty, true-to-life type of film, even if liberties were taken with the actual events of Tunnel 28.

It was interesting that while my German friends and I drove through Berlin, they would constantly inform me "now we are in The East" or "now we are in the West"...the same thing when we were on the Autobahn...apparently Germans still refer to "East" and "West"...it will probably take a generation of two more before East and West Berlin and East and West Germany are relegated to history in the minds of the German people.

Elaine Clearwater FL