In my opinion to make a good war movie is quite difficult. As to write a good war novel.
I saw this at the theater in the early 1970's. The most memorable and scary scene is when the German army attacks with yellow cross mustard gas for the first time.
Most people won't expect much of this film if they judge it by its opening credits -- psychedelic lettering, weird music, cheap and lurid colors. It looks like the beginning of a grindhouse movie or one of those Japanese entries in which human organs are flung around with abandon.
One of the most noir of war movies, and perhaps from such an unlikely source,being one of the "airbus" of movie makers, the multinational European efforts such as Italy/Yugoslavia. Everyone talks about the famous and horrible noir devastating poison gas attack,one reviewer states that it is on the British troops, but actually I recall it is on the Belgian-held part of the line, small detail, whatever, the outcome would have looked the same.
I saw this movie once in or close to its release year 36 years ago (1969). Although I can now only remember bits of it, I long to see it again.
Like almost everyone else who has commented on this movie, I can only wonder why this has never appeared on video.I recall seeing it at about age 12 on the "The Late Show," circa 1972.
After seeing again Fräulein Doktor on NetFlix streaming video (before I cut that service, thanks to its notifying me two days ago of its massive pricing increase in September), I realize that this movie was nowhere near as good as I thought for years. So I am making a massive rewrite of my previous very positive review of this WWI spy movie.
Luckily, not knowing anything about this movie I was curious enough to tape it from TV. And then the tape ran out just five minutes before the ending!
It seems more than passing strange that such utter dreck as "Dukes of Hazzard" and "The Hills Have Eyes" (the new version) can find DVD distributors while older - and far superior works such as this film - are nowhere to be found. With all the on-going debate about the morality (or lack thereof) of warfare, and interest in espionage (consider the multiple Jack Ryan, Bourne, XXX, and "Mission: Impossible" productions, this would seem to be an obvious choice for release on DVD.
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