I found this a little disappointing because... it was better than I expected! I was expecting something more melodramatic and emotionally wrenching than natural acting in a subtle and believable story showing that even in the midst of adversity, love is all you need.
This is very much a typical Frank Borzage film. A director who could always find the silver lining in the darkest cloud. Although this is set in Germany during one of its most difficult times in its history, the suffering and misery is far from layered on with a trowel as you might expect. What was happening in the real world, the background, the eye watering poverty and political violence are instrumental in moulding our young couple but this film is not about Germany, the depression or the rise of the Nazis. It is a film about two young people starting out in the world when everything seems to be against them. It's about how they learn to love each other, how they learn to love themselves and how they learn to love life.
Carl Laemmle at Universal didn't want to make his audiences even more miserable than the Depression was already making them so asked Mr Borzage to give this a positive message and a cheerful outlook which indeed suited Frank Borzage's own optimistic attitude. It is not therefore as emotionally engaging or in my opinion, anything like as good as MANS CASTLE but has a very similar feel - even down to feeding pigeons in front of people who haven't eaten in days. Just like in MANS CASTLE our young couple here, Hans and Lammchen almost exist in their own little universe which the real world inconveniently occasionally pokes its ugly head into.
That ugly world on the outside is never fully explained, again just like Loretta Young and Spencer Tracy in his other film, Hans and Lammchen don't really have any family or friends or connections to the outside world. This is about how they just need each other. That outside world however is a bad place but it never expands on the conflicts between the Nazis or communists and it doesn't expand or explain the very curious and somewhat disturbing relationship the middle-aged Mr Jachman has with Hans' new wife. That's just one of those outside factors which true love eventually triumphs over.
If I've made it sound light and superficial then I apologise, that's not what I intended - it is gritty, it is upsetting but it is also a fairy story for grown-ups. That fairy-tale feel is possibly reinforced by the first fifteen minutes when we have to suffer the almost cartoon characters who own the business Hans works for. As soon as this awful bunch of actors are gone, I assure you it gets much better.
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