Customer Reviews

A Time to Love and A Time to Die [VHS]

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Set during World War II and shown from the perspective of the common German soldier, this film may be one of the best ever at showing the true nature of war. Although Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" is far better known and more widely read, "A Time to Love and a Time to Die" has a less overt anti-war message, but provides a real insight into the tragic cost of national conflict.
John Gavin plays an infantryman on the Russian front that has to walk a fine line between his military's policy and his feelings of humanity.
When he returns to war-torn Berlin on leave, he finds that his childhood home has been destroyed and that his family is missing. During his search for any information on his missing family, he meets the daughter of one of his school teachers from before the war. The resulting relationship constitutes most of the focus of the film. They fall in love and marry before he returns to the front.
The film has a tragic ending that emphasizes the finality of war and its ultimate inequality. Goodness provides no protection to its victims and yet life may continue on and on.

Erich Marie Remarqe wrote All Quiet on the Western Front, and

A Time to Love and A Time to Die almost 30 years apart.

Yet these two stories and the films made from them, seem to speak to one another. Its as if the young soilder Paul is speaking to his counterpart, the mature soilder Ernest, across

a gulf of time. that spans two world wars.

These are two very moving and sad films. Statements on how ugly

and utterly useless war is.

I hope that this haunting film will on day be available on dvd.

Perhaps paired with All Quiet on The Western Front.

This film may be considered one of the last artistic statements of a filmmaker was perhaps to have born out of time. His artistic path is characterized by a deep concern about the human nature. In this sense, his style is intimately linked with Max Ophlus; he seems to be closer to European audiences instead the American ones. He influenced remarkably to Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

A hard relationship in a couple as direct consequence of the war wounds, a letter that will make turn back the memory key, the vanished livings in a devastated town. It's so difficult at first glance to be engaged unless you are placed from the another side of the world. Thousand of altered destinies, of forced twists of fate, of what it could have been and it wasn't.

A shadowed film, loaded with dark poetry, not easy going but immensely rewarding at the end of the road.

Based on Erich Maria Remarque's play, including a curious intervention of the same novelist in the film.

Several yrs ago I read "A Time to Love and A Time to Die" by Eric Maria Remarque. It is one of my favorite novels. When I found out that there was a movie of it, I really wanted to see it.

The film was made in the late 1950's, so it had that atmosphere about it, but I felt it did justice to the book. It is a romantic tale about two lonely souls who meet up in a war-scarred city in Germany as WW2 draws to a close. One is a German soldier who is war-weary, and the other is a non-Jewish woman whose father was taken to a concentration camp for speaking out against the war. Their love affair takes place amidst the ruins of the city they live in. The film does not have the classic "Happy ending" of 1950's American movies, but that is good,since it is true to the book, and adds to the poignancy of the story. I highly recommend both the film and the book.

...that's all it took. I saw this movie early one morning in 1976. I loved it. The story is so heartjerking it left me feeling as if I'd just witnessed a great and magnificent epic. Told marvelously and portrayed with the tortured, pure emotion that only John Gavin (Lest we forget Back Street with Susan Hayward) can deliver. I've looked for this film for 32 years. Thank You. I've found it.

Like "All Quiet on the Western Front" this old movie shows the average German soldier was not much different than the people on the other side. Although you will come to like the Man and his wife you know from the start that the Romance will not have a happy ending.