Frieda

This Ealing Studios drama from 1947 revolves around a young German woman who helps an English airman escape from a POW camp as WW2 draws to a close. As a sign of gratitude he marries her and takes her back to his Oxfordshire home so she can obtain a British passport, however, what he hasn’t taken into consideration is the hostility of the local townspeople towards her. Even among his own family tensions arise. Based upon the play of the same title by Ronald Miller, FRIEDA was a daring production at a time when anti-German sentiment was at its peak and yet it turned out to be the ninth most popular film at the British box office that year.

We’re off to a tense start when Frieda (Mai Zetterling), a young German nurse, helps English airman Robert Dawson (David Farrar) escape from a German POW camp. Although she is in love with him his feelings for her are purely one of gratitude. Nonetheless, both get married in a bombed-out church in Krakow between Russian-German lines surrounded by heavy artillery fire in a scene which is reminiscent of the present day conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Robert married Frieda not out of love but as a ‘thank you’ for having saved his life – something she is either not aware of or refuses to acknowledge. While he is certain that she will love the tranquillity of Oxfordshire and her family, Frieda is altogether more sceptical and wonders whether people will in fact like her on grounds of her being German. Her scepticism proves right for no sooner does Robert arrive at his family home than Frieda is greeted politely but not exactly warmly while Aunt Eleanor (Flora Robson), a local figure in politics, makes no secret of the fact that she feels nothing but disdain for the German people. As the days pass, Robert’s mother (Barbara Everest) and his sister-in-law Judy (Glynis Johns) make at least an effort to get along with Frieda… unlike his small stepbrother Tony (Ray Jackson) who is of the opinion that “it isn’t wicked to hate Germans, it says so in the papers…” Things aren’t helped by the fact that Robert’s brother Alan was shot down three months earlier over the Rhine area – leaving Judy a widow - though Frieda’s parents were killed in Cologne by British forces. When Robert’s mother wonders as to why her son and his bride still sleep in separate rooms despite being married he explains that their wedding back on the Continent was a Protestant one as the Polish Priest (Gerard Heinz) was the only one they could find, however, since Frieda is a Catholic she prefers a proper marriage conducted in her own faith, hence the separate bedrooms.

Further tensions arise when widowed Judy seems to see her dead husband Alan every time she looks at Robert, a flashback scene set before the outbreak of WW2 depicts the two brothers and Judy as almost inseparable. Meanwhile, Robert has taken up his old post as a teacher again but begins to wonder as more and more pupils fail to turn up during class until one of the boys informs him that the pupils’ parents don’t want a teacher who is married to the ‘enemy’. The hostility soon extends to all other aspects of life, for example when Judy takes Frieda along to sort out a British rationing card for her and one onlooker remarks how unfair it is that English rations should be shared with the ‘German woman’. Of course, Aunt Eleanor also experiences a hard time when she tries to gain political support during a rally, with the townspeople accusing her and her family of taking in a German into their household – it’s interesting to note that no one ever refers to Frieda by her name but merely as ‘the German woman’. In a particularly disturbing scene Robert and Frieda watch a schmaltzy movie in the local cinema until the Gaumont newsreel screens scenes of unimaginable horror filmed at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. When Robert asks Frieda afterwards whether she was aware of the atrocities she indicates that some Germans were aware of camps without acknowledging they knew what really went on.

It’s not all doom and gloom though as over the ensuing months Robert seems to grow fonder of Frieda and Judy predicts that within 6 months the townspeople will have reached a stage of considerably more tolerance and forgiveness towards Frieda (not that she actually ever committed any crime except being… German). Christmas 1945 approaches and Judy’s well-meant words seem to have come true: at the local dance no one seems to care anymore about Frieda’s nationality and it would appear she has finally been accepted by all. When Robert proposes the date for the wedding proper, Judy even offers Frieda her own wedding dress. But then a surprise guest arrives: it is Richard (Albert Lieven), Frieda’s brother and a former German soldier who had been captured and allowed to volunteer for the Polish army (or so he claims). At first delighted to see him, especially as she thought he had been killed in action, her joy soon turns to disgust when he presents her with a special wedding gift… a swastika medal on a chain. Challenged by Frieda he explains to his sister that “all Germans are one and think as one” – a dangerous attitude which convinces Frieda that her brother is still a Nazi at heart and harbours hopes that there will be another war in the future, only this time with the Germans winning. Later on in the pub, Richard is recognised by a disfigured man (an ex-British soldier) as one of the guards in the concentration camp in which the British man was held (and consequently disfigured). At first Richard denies the accusations but when Robert confronts him he makes no secret out of the fact that he is still in favour of Nazi-ideology and even lies to Robert that Frieda had been aware of his beliefs and approved of it all along. It is a lie which has profound consequences for Robert and Frieda’s relationship – leading up to the film’s dramatic conclusion…

Perhaps it should be pointed out that the conclusion of the stage play differs considerably from the film’s climax in which there is a happy ending despite the odds, whereas in the stage version Robert and Frieda’s relationship cannot continue after her brother turns up and she decides to return to her native Germany, albeit with the intention of ‘teaching’ post-war Germans about the British values of forgiveness and generosity.
Producers Michael Balcon and Michael Relph went to great lengths with regards to casting the role of Frieda with a suitable actress – seeing as how the film was made two years after WW2 and anti-German sentiments were indeed still high the choice fell on Mai Zetterling – already a star in her native Sweden though largely unknown outside her homeland. FRIEDA catapulted her to international fame and she delivers an impressive portrayal of a young woman whose yearning for happiness seems constantly hampered by the ghosts of her past. David Farrar is in equally fine form as the optimist who has a rough awakening upon realising the Oxfordshire townspeople are much more prejudiced against his bride than he assumed they would be. That said, Flora Robson plays everyone against the wall as Robert’s aunt who makes no secret out of the fact that she will not tolerate a German amidst the family household, as far as she is concerned the young woman is merely another dreaded Hun.

Fully restored and released for the first time on Blu-ray, DVD and on Digital, FRIEDA offers the following Extras: ‘Strength and Weakness’: Matthew Sweet on Frieda / ‘Looking Back at Frieda’ featurette / Behind the Scenes gallery.