Goodbye, Franziska (Auf wiedersehn, Franziska!) (1941), directed by Helmut Käutner. DVD at Tom’s, Monday, June 12.

…sometimes, perhaps often, produces mediocrities like Goodbye, Franziska. The director of Romance in a Minor Key and Great Freedom No. 7 (both great) was a Nazi-era filmmaker whose work often flew in the face of censors and the government. Here, the story of the eponymous woman falling in love with a photojournalist who must abandon her regularly had a tacked on ending that infuriated the director. The ending is very pro-war, and pro-Nazi. It’s interesting because, in some respects, American studios would never allow a story of a woman who is in love with a dude who impregnates her and refuses to get married to her until much later. I mean, they’re not married and they have a kid. For a long time. And in this movie that’s only bad in an emotional sense, but not in a moral or legal way, which wouldn’t fly in America until maybe the 1970s. Also, Käutner directed stunning bar scenes throughout his career–Great Freedom No. 7 is almost nothing but–and here there’s a fascinating moment in a bar in China filled with Black actors. I want to hear the story of being a Black German actor in the 1940s. Because the film is pretty haphazard and makes no sense, that was honestly all I could think about.