Product Details

• Actors: Kristy McNichol, Bruce Davison, Esther Rolle, Michael Constantine, Barbara Barrie
• Directors: Michael Tuchner
• Writers: Bette Greene, Jane-Howard Hammerstein
• Producers: Linda Gottlieb, Robert F. Colesberry
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount Home Video
• VHS Release Date: July 10, 1989
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301608518
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #73,136 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Starring Kristy McNichol and Bruce Davison A made-for-television production dealing with the romance between a young Jewish girl and a German POW who is incarcerated in a camp in the United States.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Georgia verisimilitude, July 3, 2004

By 

D. Thomas Longo Jr. (Delmar, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Summer of My German Soldier [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This a a sweet and tender little movie that conveys a tangible sense of what WWII-era rural Georgia may have been like geographically, culturally, and emotionally with regard to the war. I viewed it recently for a third time over about a ten year period, and it still came across well.

The character of the young German soldier is a bit fanciful (hard to believe a POW would have been that "ideal,") but the troubled young lady yearning for a friend in the face of an impossible father comes across well. Dad is an ogre. Mom is a wimp. The black maid is a small heroine.

All in all, worth a look.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic film about racism, October 6, 2003

By 

K. Cook (Niceville, FLorida United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Summer of My German Soldier [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The main character pulls at your heart strings from the very beginning. Patty longs to have a friend. Someone who really likes her, maybe even love her. By rescuing the escaping soldier, she learns more about the world, other people, her family, friends, and herself. I saw this movie when it first aired, and have never forgotten it. I wish they would air it again. Although this film was set during WWII, I think young people today could still learn that not all is what it seems, and that we have to love our selves first before another can.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I Watched The Movie And Read The Book!, May 7, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Summer of My German Soldier [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Based on a book by the same name by Bette Greene this is a good movie about a 13 year old Jewish girl growing up in a rural southern town during World War II, a town that has a prisioner of war camp for German POWs and the girl who is nmaed Patty comes from a dysfunctional home in which her fat slob father is an abusive drunk who hates her and is constantly beating her and her mother is an uncaring wimp who also doesn't care about her daughter yet they love and spoil Patty's little sister Sharon and the only love Patty receives is from the family's black housekeeper and than Patty meets an escaped German POW who it turns out was forced into the German Army and hated Hitler and she strikes up a friendship with him. This is a sad but good movie but can be very controversial. The cast for this movie includes Kristy McNichol as Patty, Bruce Davidson as Anton the escaped POW, Ester Rolle as Ruth the housekeeper, Michael Constantine as Patty's father, Barbara Barrie as Patty's mother and Robin Lively as Patty's little sister Sharon. BTW' a Previous reviewer says she watched this movie in black and white, but this movie first aired on TV in 1978 and is acolor movie so she must have watched it on an old black and white TV set...... This is also a book and I think I actually saw the movie first and than read the book.