Summer of My German Soldier (1978)
Patty Bergen is a teenager in a Jewish family living in the American South during World War II. Patty feels like an outcast even in her own family and is unable to understand why her father can't seem to love her. Her town eventually becomes host to a prisoner of war camp. A young German soldier escapes from this camp, and Patty finds him hiding in her secret place in the woods outside of town. After getting to know him, she ends up harboring him from his captors and, in the way of many adolescents, falls in love with him. Patty knows what she is risking by helping him, but in his company, she feels important, special, and respected as she has never been. In the end, his regard lifts her self-esteem and helps her to face the heartbreaking events to come.
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"Summer of My German Soldier" was one of the many TV movies that became a staple of the small screen in the 1970s (others were "Brian's Song", "Sybil" and "Someone's Watching Me!"). It portrays a Jewish girl (Kristy McNichol) befriending a German POW (Bruce Davison) in WWII-era Georgia. One of the things that the movie shows is that many of the German soldiers weren't really Nazis, but were just drafted. Watching the movie, I got a real sense of how things must have been in the South back then; I mean, can you imagine being a Jewish person accused of supporting the enemy? So, I certainly recommend this movie. I believe that it's always important to show the things portrayed here. Occasional overacting keeps the movie from being a full-scale masterpiece, but they usually do quite well. I hope that the movie eventually comes out on DVD. Also starring Esther Rolle and Michael Constantine (the "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" patriarch).
I was forced to read this sappy "love story" between a German 24 year old POW and a 12 year old Jew. That has "political correctness" written all over it. Its kind of like the movie "SPIRIT" in which a horse wants to be free but those "evil" Americans wont let it because they need it. Well i have good news the Americans are "evil" in The German soldier and his summer book. Why!!! Horses where given to us by god and if the Americans needed a horse the can darn well use it. In the same sense the German had been trying to kill Americans, but this book/movie makes it seem OK! The casting is absolutely awful!!!!!!!!!!!! The girl is Hispanic the mother is white the dad it probubly from mostly white descent and the little sister is "shirley templish." The acting is pretty bad too, the serious parts become comedy! Concluson-Bad movie, bad book, but both have different endings, don't read or see either one!
I would catch this cornball melodrama years ago and its ridiculous attempts at confronting discrimination and racism and showing love can conquer better than war or hate is as preachy and as alienating as the most disapproving image of Mother Superior or any other kind of Catholic priest or charismatic evangelist. Other posts have relayed what the story was about. I can honestly say I didn't catch on to it being a wonderful love story, that's for sure.McNichol and Davison were hardly a sweet teen romance. I recall Constantine's quiet "youre dead to me" comment to McNichol, but McNichol would also scream at all those around they were murderers when the escaped German prisoner was shot and killed. Talk about cheesy angst, over and over again with this thing. But I guess the funniest moment for me was at the very end with Anne Haney, the elderly lady perhaps best known for her final appearances in "Mrs. Doubtfire" when Robin Williams shoved his face in that cake, and she was in "Liar, Liar" with Jim Carrey as his assistant. Haney is a gossipy neighbor lady, representing society at large in this one woman.As McNichol and her only ally, it seems, Esther Rolle (who won a supporting actress Emmy for this thing) are walking down the streets, enduring all the glaring stares of disapproval.Haney spews out the most incredible slur I think I have ever heard, "Jew Nazi n*gg*r lover."I was totally confused how one could be a Jew lover and a Nazi lover as one was killing the other in WWII, when this movie was taking place. Where on Earth did the Jew figure into it? Rolle would then deliver a tirade on Haney "leave this child be!" which of course would be highly unlikely for a Black woman to talk to a white woman like that in the forties, as anyone who checks out Oprah Winfrey's imprisonment in "Color Purple" will see. This movie was alot of wishful thinking; that people could speak so freely and that others would be silenced so easily. Unfortunately all it does is more dividing of the masses, leaving society as a whole back at square one, if we are to believe the messages here.
This is an incredibly moving story, based on Bette Greene's teen novel. The entire cast is wonderful - Kristy MacNichol, Bruce Davison, Esther Rolle. Just brilliant. I saw this when I was about 12, and read the book and the sequel. Have managed to catch it on TV a couple of times since. Such a heart-wrenching story, the kind they don't know how to make any more. More's the pity.