| Duped Till Doomsday | |
| Director: | Kurt Jung-Alsen |
| Producer: | Adolf Fischer |
| Starring: | Rudolf Ulrich |
| Music: | Günter Klück |
| Cinematography: | Walter Fehdmer |
| Editing: | Wally Gurschke |
| Distributor: | Progress Film |
| Runtime: | 97 minutes |
| Country: | East Germany |
| Language: | German |
Duped Till Doomsday (German: '''Betrogen bis zum jüngsten Tag''') is a 1957 East German drama film directed by Kurt Jung-Alsen. It was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.[1]
Soldiers Wagner, Paulun and Lick are three friends and the best sharpshooters in a division stationed in Latvia, near the German-Soviet border. During June 1941, while on leave, they take a walk near a river and spot movement in a bush. Believing it to be a bird, they shoot in its direction, only to discover that they have killed Angelika, their captain's daughter. The three dump her corpse in a swamp and proceed as if nothing happened.
Lick relates the incident to his father, a Waffen-SS general, who decides to use the corpse for propaganda purposes: on 22 June, the day of the invasion of the Soviet Union, he exhumes Angelika's remains and claims she was killed by Soviet marauders. Her father orders to shoot a number of Latvian women in retaliation.
Paulun tries to tell the truth, but Lick claims he is insane; Wagner remains silent. When Paulun tries to escape arrest, he is killed by Lick. Wagner does nothing and continues to behave as usual.
The script was adapted from the 1955-published novel Kameraden by Franz Fühmann. Fühmann himself was excluded from participating in the production.[2] The picture was the first of the "army epics", a new East German genre that reformed the classic German style of portraying military comradeship, replacing the typical tales of military friendship with plots centered on moral dilemmas facing the servicemen.[3] In addition, the picture was intended as a response to the war films produced in the West at those years.[4]
Betrogen bis zum jüngsten Tag was the first East German film to be entered into the Cannes Film Festival; a year earlier, at 1956, Zar und Zimmermann and Der Teufelskreis were screened outside the competition.[5] Although the picture had no chance of winning due to political considerations,[2] it was nominated for the Palme d'Or.[1]
The film was DEFA's most successful project since the 1946 Murderers Among Us. It was well received abroad.[2] The Punch magazine's reviewer wrote that it was "very worth seeing... mostly admirable, flowed in the end."[6] The East German media called it "the first DEFA war film" and praised it.[4] Fühmann's work received considerable attention due to the film, and his books were re-printed.[2]