A Time to Love and a Time to Die

Douglas Sirk directed this doomed World War II love story, seen from the German side of the war, as filtered through a distinctly late-'50s Hollywood banality. The film is based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the author of the classic World War I anti-war novel All Quiet On the Western Front -- and who makes a cameo appearance in the film as an elderly schoolteacher. The film stars John Gavin as Ernst Graber, a young Nazi soldier home on leave during the height of World War II. While on leave, he falls in love and marries Elizabeth Kruze (Lilo Pulver). With bombs falling all around the young couple, they set up house with a kindly old woman. Then Elizabeth becomes pregnant. But before Ernst can grasp the reality of his becoming a father, he is sent back to the war -- to fight the brutal battle along the Russian front.~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide