Watching Zarah's movie (thankfully the good print and subtitled versions are available, of course with some minor errors - for example when Leo, Magda's paternal mentor, calls Poldi by the sobriquet Undine, he meant 'Angel'. But over all the subtitles at the warfilms had been good.
Most of the reviewers here has called it as the Propaganda movie. That is some interesting term. It would look so from western angle but if one gets neutral, neither with Axis or Allies leaning, then probably almost all the movies in Hollywood were propaganda movies at that time - even supposed to be musical romcoms. What you call of the 'Last Time I saw Paris' in 'Lady Be Good' ? Isn't that a blatant propaganda ? If this is a propaganda movie, so was Gone With the Wind or any one on that matter.
So I won't go here on Propaganda aspect, in fact I really don't find that aspect here. Asking one to come back to roots is propaganda ? Really ?
Secondly the other two aspects had been quite interestingly missing, whether deliberately . Anti-semitic - easily the villain Keller could have been a Jew, after all he was a corrupt banker or the anti-allies angles. There is an interesting episode, when Zarah is asked of the American cultures and she said there are negroes, diswashers and fraudsters. But the manner she said it, it was more of taunting the presumptive man, than stating fact. I don't know what the SS would have intended, but definitely not this. It looks so sad that Zarah was virtually black-listed as Nazi sympathizer. In fact one of the reviewer even calls of the 'Morality imposed by Goebel's ministry. I would say it was exactly opposite. Heroine had a child out-of wedlock, she keeps the child hidden, has a sort of guilt complex, but not too much. His american's including her entourage of German people, know of the existence. She doesn't want the townsfolk to know, for natural reason. They have too outdated morality concept (which had been even semi-ridiculed by the movie). To compound that, she refused to marry the father of the child, even when pressed to do so, by the seducer as well as her own father.
And there, I would say it is a morality preaching, but not the morality of the 'Society', but the morality of a human. How could she be asked to marry a person like that and expect to be happily ever after, like countless holly movies expect to (Love in the Afternoon style, which is one of the most common Holly themes, including in Gone With the Wind, where for similar behaviour, Clark is exonerated, but not Vivian ).
In this aspect, I find Zarah's or Garbo's movies to be forerunner of the feminism. Not in a feminist way, but in humanist way. If the genders are equal, they are so, not by denigrating the other gender, but rising up and matching the shoulders.
This is a simple story of a provincial girl, rebelling against the father to follow her heart, a career in music, leaving family and silent adorer behind. The down-fall, the seduction by the philandering villain, having a baby, and then further struggles, probably including Cabaret performances, till she rose up in her station, hadn't been covered in detail, just hinted. At last the leading star of NY's Metropolitan Opera, she comes back to her provincial home-town, for a performance, but really to visit her family once more, and there she is subjected to the slanderers and manipulators- through evil or emotional blackmail.
The end was too much of coincidence to be of my liking, I would have rather had the factor removed through the involvement of the Prince, who was not only her great fan, but also had several times offered his help whenever she requires. The same end would have been achieved through him, removing this coincidence factor. But anyway, it is easy to think of things from my chair that director missed from his, and not appreciate what he didn't miss (and I would have). This didn't take away the enjoyment coefficient by introducing a jar, which many movies do.
