In order to bring this to the screen in 1943 Margin For Error had to be told in flashback. So it was by star Milton Berle as he relates to his fellow GIs his and Carl Esmond's story as they are about to hit a beach.
Policeman Milton Berle is assigned to guarding the German consulate in New York, despite his protests. He woos the German maid, Liesl Handl, gets along well with aristocratic consulate secretary Carl Esmond, thinks the consulate's wife, Joan Bennett, is quite a looker (so do I).
Preminger also starred and directed the stage play which ran highly successful seasons both on Broadway (264 performances) and the West Coast, so he was a natural for the movie version. Unfortunately, the play is more than a trifle dated, unlike Mrs Luce's other huge stage success, The Women, which is still pointed and amusing even today.
It's just a joy to see Moe Finkelstein,a modest cop ,give lessons in democracy to a consul (the director/actor) and to a German of high birth,a baron !It was a propaganda movie ,but it did not repeat parrot(!
I saw this film last night at the NFT.Unfortunately my hopes were not realised.
I saw this odd "comedy" in the early 1970s when I was at college. It is not a great comedy - barely a passingly good comedy.
"Margin for Error" is a propaganda film starring, of all people, Milton Berle! It's an odd but entertaining picture and is still watchable today.
Here, Nazi silliness makes "Hogan's Heroes" look serious. Two Jewish cops (Milton Berle and Joe Kirk) are assigned to the German Embassy in New York, an assignment I wouldn't wish on a Communist.
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