Peter Kopff

Excellent love story of three brilliant musicians. Robert Walker is talented and righteous Johannes Brahms. Huge contrast to his role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. Katherine Hepburn plays talented concert pianist and keeps her composure raising seven children. She stays true to her husband even after he predeceases her. She resumes concerts to introduce her husband’s music to her fans. Paul Henreid gives his usual excellent performance as Robert Schumann.

Rock Hudson becomes a surgeon to give back for harm caused as a reckless youth.

Excellent chiller. Charles Boyer plays an evil and manipulative husband. Ingrid Bergman is outstanding as the vulnerable spouse . Boyer torments his spouse to doubt her sanity. Joseph Cotton is a determined detective. Bergman won her first of three best actress Academy Awards for this role.

We now understand the ineffectiveness of air bombing to achieve military victory. This film convincingly portrays a British family whose beloved son died in London in 1942 German bombing. The wife suffers years later. US / British bombing of Hamburg in 1945 killed the wife of a German architect and mother of his daughter. The British major shows compassion for defeated Germans but is unable to meaningly comfort his grieving wife. The German architect is sensitive to the British spouse’s anguish and they become amorous. The acting is excellent among the entire cast. Music from a Gilbert and Sullivan to Wagnerian opera is effective to highlight the behavior or emotions of characters in post World War II Germany. Portrayal of the defeated Germans is compassionate. Both sides suffer in war.