06 Feb Verboten!
Verboten!, starring James Best and Susan Cumming. Don’t be turned off by the movie poster. It’s better than that.
(1959) Verboten! Forbidden! was a well-used word in post-WWII Germany under the American occupation. The women were forbidden to fraternize with the military. Everyone was forbidden to talk about Hitler, much less celebrate him. Nazis were being hunted down. Food and supplies were scarce, and the black market was booming.
This movie was written, directed and produced by Sam Fuller, a World War II veteran himself. According to the TCM article his biographer Lee Server wrote that Fuller was part of a unit that liberated a Nazi concentration camp near Falkenau. He shot 16 mm footage which later was incorporated into his 1988 documentary Falkenau, the Impossible. (On YouTube, there are 3 different videos.)
Fuller integrated into his story the graphic and, shocking at the time, films of the concentration camps that were shown at the war crime trials in Nuremberg.
Our hero is an American soldier who falls in love with a German girl. Of course, that is verboten! The soldier is played by actor James Best, his love by Susan Cummings. I wasn’t familiar with either but James Best is now 87, and he’s been acting ever since!
In the movie, we are introduced to the Werewolves, a group of fierce thugs who want to replicate Hitler. Their leader is played by 26-year-old teen idol Tom Pittman, an excellent actor who already had 37 movies and TV shows to his credit. Right after this movie was filmed he died in a car accident when he rolled down a mountain in the Hollywood Hills.
At the end of Verboten! he also suffered a violent death.
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