Review: The Master Race

George Coulouris stars as a Nazi colonel during a period in WWII where it seems certain that Germany will be defeated. However, he devises a plan for surviving Nazi officers like himself to go to liberated countries and cause as much dissension amongst the peoples that it’s only a matter of time before the Nazis will take over. Coulouris, for his part, goes to the Belgian community of Kolar, on the verge of being liberated by Americans like Stanley Ridges’ Major. Coulouris assumes the identity of the brother of a local man whose family are distrusted by much of the community due to rumours of Nazi collaborators. From there he pretty much forces the remaining family members (Helen Beverly, Nancy Gates) to shut up about his charade. Osa Massen plays a local woman who has been knocked up to her shame by a German soldier who raped her, with Gigi Perreau as the little girl. Lloyd Bridges plays Massen’s recently returned brother, who used to be with Gates, until he finds out about her family’s supposed activities. Carl Esmond turns up as a Russian doctor working with the Allies.

 

Although it’s a very, very silly film, this 1944 from Hollywood Ten member Herbert Biberman (“Salt of the Earth”) has some- but ultimately limited- camp value. The best thing I can say about it is that it’s harmlessly silly, rather than embarrassing or offensive. In other words, it’s not any good, but it could’ve been so very much worse. George Coulouris gives a nicely hammy as hell performance, which has its charms, as does the overall dopiness of the whole thing.

 

Some of the other performances are sadly amateurish, though solid Stanley Ridges, a slightly melodramatic Osa Massen, and a young-ish Lloyd Bridges (whose role sucks) aren’t bad. Adorable child actress Gigi Perreau steals her every scene, which isn’t enough. I wouldn’t call the film incoherent, but as scripted by Rowland Leigh, Anne Froelich and the director, its story isn’t told with the greatest of clarity, either. It can take a little while to latch on to everyone’s relation to one another and I wonder if there’s not one or two characters too many for the film to really handle. Worse, for a film set in Belgium, the mixture of accents is pretty distracting: Coulouris is a Brit of Greek extraction who sounds like the most English Nazi you’ve ever heard, and you’ve got Yanks playing Yanks, Yanks playing Belgians with American accents, Danish (Osa Massen) and Hungarian (Eric Feldary) actors playing Belgians, a Russian character played by an Austrian (Carl Esmond), etc. It’s all a bit much to digest. The stark B&W cinematography by Russell Metty (“Spartacus”, “The Misfits”, “Touch of Evil”) is excellent, though.

 

Not good, and the camp value and fun performance by veteran George Coulouris can’t carry this one over the line. It’s extremely silly, but not really worth seeing outside of a curio, if you’re desperate.

 

Rating: C