A bit slow moving but nonetheless interesting. The only thing missing is Maria Ouspenskaya stirring a boiling cauldron.
Paul Henried and Ida Lupino fall in love near Warsaw. She's a British commoner employed by a fancy English antique collector. Paul and Ida meet by accident in an antique shop. After they do some innocent and tender kanoodling for a while, Paul decides to bring Ida home to meet the Fockers...oops...I mean the royal Orvid family.
Only philosophical uncle Leopold Baruta likes Ida. Paul's sister,Janina, hates her while the rest of the Orvids think she's not good enough for Paul. In the meantime, we encounter a guy who's supporting them all-- Count Pavel. The reason why he's a Count is because everyone watches him count his money to then disperse to them as monthly stipends.
Count Pavel is also a representative of Poland to Nazi Germany and he's convinced that, after Czechoslovakia, Hitler had no more territorial designs on Europe so it would be a good idea to give him the Polish Corridor so as not to tick him off into attacking Poland.
Ida begins to dislike the whole Orvid family and especially Paul's reliance on Pavel for dough. So she's about to hop a train to get her back to England when Paul promises to become independent and she buys into it. So they marry, start teaching the peasants how to till the land while Pavel seethes because this is no way for Polish nobility to act.
On Sept,1.1939, the Nazis invade Poland and begin bombing Warsaw. Paul puts on his military uniform and heads for battle. Ida is left home and somehow, she rallies the peasants into fighting the Germans which history proves to be an absurdity. She teaches them the "scorched earth" policy which history teaches was anachronistic because it was the Russians who employed it against the Nazis after 6/22/41.
However despite its flaws,it all makes for an interesting anti-Nazi, morale boosting film for us at home.
