A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958) on Netflix
Approved19582h 12mDramaRomanceWar
In 1944, German soldier Ernst Graeber is sickened by the killings he sees in Russia. On his first leave in two years, he comes home to a bombed house and meets Elizabeth.
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- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.6/104,115 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
Spring 1944: Ernst Graeber's infantry unit is falling back across Russia, and the shooting of captured civilians he sees there leaves him disgusted. He receives his first leave in more than two years and travels home, only to find the family house in ruins and his parents unaccounted for. He calls at the house of the family doctor, and the doctor's daughter, Elizabeth, explains that her father was sent to a concentration camp over a careless remark. Bombing raids come both day and night. Oscar Binding, an old school friend who now leads the local Nazi Party, offers Ernst a place to stay, food, drink and female company, but Ernst chooses quarters with fellow soldiers in a hospital and looks for chances to see Elizabeth.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Douglas Sirk's own son, an actor, died in Ukraine in 1944 at the age of 18 while serving as a soldier in the Panzer-Grenadier-Division Großdeutschland.
- Sirk shot the film in West Berlin, the city he had fled more than 20 years earlier, and at the US Army Europe training area at Grafenwöhr.
- Universal could have built the film as a star vehicle but instead cast fresh, unknown performers in the lead roles, so audiences could accept them as a young Nazi officer and his sweetheart.
- The film was the screen debut of Jim Hutton, who was serving in the American army in Berlin at the time.
- Universal publicly claimed the film cost $5 million, but studio president Milton Rackmil denied that the company had ever spent that amount on a film.
