"1939 Battle of Westerplatte movie review" Topic

In the wake the embarrassing disasters that were the "Battle of Vienna 1683" and "Battle of Warsaw 1920" movies (both panned by critics and the Polish audience) another movie was being kicked around by studios, a movie about the Polish defense of Westerplatte – the military transit depot adjacent to the free city of Gdansk where the opening shots marked the beginning of WW2. This movie had huge problems during production and was stuck in production hell as studio executives didn't like the screenplay, supposedly "diminishing the heroic defenders of Westerplatte and falsifying facts". This was quite absurd because you nowadays read up on a lot of the historical facts of that battle.

The anger stemmed a lot from the original movie "Westerplatte" from 1967 where the defenders were portrayed as badasses and the whole defense as a human triumph over extreme conditions. The main problem with this is that the original movie was shot during the Soviet occupation, there was a lot of facts being surpressed at that time, the defenders themselves had also kept their mouthes shut about many of the events during the battle. So basically the 1967 movie only showed a lot of shooting and very little of the actual story. I also think that the characters were very one dimensional and the movie while being "OK" is not really that good for the simple reason of having little to offer except for action scenes.

The new movie released earlier this year is called "Tajemnica Westerplatte" in Polish, which translates "The secret of Westerplatte". The secret being that the actual command during the battle was not held by Major Sucharski but by his 2iC Captain Dabrowski. That Sucharski suffered from some kind of mental breakdown (in the movie it is epilepsy) and was unfit for command after the Germans bombed the out of the peninsula on the second day. The panicking Major wanted to surrender and was restrained while the battle went on for another 5 days under the command of captain Sucharski.

Check my blog for the complete review which also includes connections to the historical facts of the battle as depicted in both the 2013 and 1967 movie: link

Interesting, thanks!

Regards,

J. P. Kelly

IF you attend a convention where ATO (Against the Odds) magazine has a booth, or has decided to support said con, you can snag a copy of "Some Poles Apart", dealing with the aforementioned subject.

You can also purchase a game from ATO and get a free copy, w/die cut counters.

atomagazine.com/freegame.cfm

The game is exactly the size of a postcard and has a lot of replay value. When I get the die cut counters, I go to Office Depot and have the post card enlarged to an 8.5 x 11 card stock map, just for more elbow room, but the game plays fine either way.

Anatoli…is the movie subtitled in English and available for US viewing?

Does sound interesting …

@Andrew Preziosi, it's subtitled in English and can be purchased through Amazon among other places.

Thank you, Anatoli!

One of the most boring WWII movies I've seen. Even the battle scenes sucked.

Much of the movie is taken up by infighting and arguments between the detachment's commander, a major, and his subordinate captain over whether they should surrender. And the 'relentless' German attacks (which are few and far in between, giving the movie its uneven, glacial pace) are nothing more than half-hearted, unsupported probing attacks with small groups of disorganized men in skirmish lines. They would advance cautiously to within 50 yards (pistol range) before the Poles would gun them down, and when they do they just fall down bloodlessly like someone turned a switch off. What a disappointment and 2 hours of my life I'll never get back.