Robert J. Maxwell
This must be what's known as "an international production", directed by a Brit and starring a Swede, a Czech, an Austrian, and another Brit, shot in Paris. The title refers to the heroine's adjustment to life and former loves after imprisonment in a concentration camp.Ingrid Thulin is a Jewish doctor living in Paris at the outbreak of the war, and Maximillian Schell is her ambitious, chess-playing, Polish paramour. He's needy; she's generous. When war is declared he finally asks her to marry him despite her being Jewish. She's delighted but remarks that she'd be happier if he were marrying her because he loves her, not because he hates the Germans. Schell corrects her. To have married her before would have been conforming. Now he's being defiant. It's an interesting exchange. It takes place while another doctor, Herbert Lom, is standing nearby. Lom -- how you say? -- loves her from afar.A couple of weakness might as well be gotten out of the way. The musical score is immemorably atonal. Not much effort has been put into period realism. Garments and hair styles look like garments and hair styles looked in 1965. The music is more irritating that evocative, and the director, J. Lee Thompson, uses far too many gigantic close ups, as if this film were designed for the television screen. The makeup underscores what for any perceptive viewer doesn't need underscoring.On Thulin's return from the concentration camps, her eyes have been turned into two black holes and her hair dusted with flour. It's a pretty careless handling of a subject that deserves very careful attention. However, Lom, who still loves her, restores her to at least a semblance of her former beauty. She still can't bring herself to contact Schell, now living in Paris with Thulin's step daughter, Semantha Eggar, from a previous marriage. As you can see, it's a little complicated. Lom loves Thulin, but Thulin loves Schell, who is shacked up with Eggar and who may or may not have EVER loved Thulin, to whom he is still married, although he's convinced she's dead.It get even MORE complicated. Thulin had a lot of money but since her remains were never identified -- how could they be? -- the money that should go to her step daughter, Eggar, is being withheld by the French government. So Schell and Eggar meet Thulin and are struck by the resemblance to Schell's wife, still thought to be deceased. They try to enlist her aid in squeezing the money out of the government by having Thulin pretend to be Schell's wife. I hope you're following all this.So all Thulin has to do, Schell insists anxiously, is pose as his wife "for a short time -- a RELATIVELY short time", forge a few papers in her handwriting, little technicalities like that. Thulin's response is polite enough. That's fine for him. He gets thirty million franks but what does she get? Thirty years in prison. But she's dealing with a determined con man who can make anything sound reasonable. "Oh, come ON, not thirty YEARS!" He scoffs, as if it might only be TWENTY years. She's curious, revolted, and shocked. Both Schell and Eggar soon reveal themselves to be scurrilous weasels, just out for the money. Thulin, for some reason, finally reveals her true identity and Schell is the consummate manipulator. He gawks and then, angry, almost in tears, he asks, "How could you DO this to me. All those years I've WAITED." It would be funny if Schell played it that way, but he does it straight.Schell prefers Eggar AND the money, and Thulin now is merely in the way. Two greedy bastards and one innocent victim, a set up for a murder. But I'll get off the plot at this point.Among the more interesting scenes is the one in which Schell welcomes Thulin (her real identity now restored) to their former residence. A toast! And with slivovitz, sometimes called "plum brandy" for reasons I've never been able to discern because, although it's made from the whole plum, it doesn't taste at all plummy, unless kerosene is plummy. Slivovitz has to be experienced to be believed. I once found myself stranded in a small Macedonian city and contacted the local authorities, who had never met an American. They happily opened the discussion with slivovitz. I must have achieved my goal, however drunk I became, because I notice I'm no longer in Skopje.Ingrid Thulin is a pretty woman but he features suggest intelligence rather than the beauty of a fashion model. Her irises are a sharp black and her nose is as broad at the top as it is at the bottom. Her voice with its diaphanous Scandinavian overtones is delicious. It skips lightly over the consonants and brushes the vowels with a lilt. She doesn't leave Herbert Lom in the hall. She leaves him in the "hole."I admire Maximillion Schell. The guy is a marvelous actor, whether in sinister or comic roles, but this is not his movie. Imagine, no matter how much effort it takes, that Arnold Schwarzenegger had all the talent of Lawrence Olivier and Marlon Brando. What good would that talent do Arnold, stuck in movies like "Predator"? Sometimes the role and the associated dialog can defeat even the best of actors. Samantha Eggar delivers the goods.Actually, the movie turns into a rather ingenious thriller towards the end, once that irrelevant mixed identity nonsense is gotten out of the way, but it's all written and directed so clumsily that the mystery is drained of life.
tomsview
About 25 years ago, I bought a record called "Movies and Me" featuring themes from movies composed by John Dankworth. I knew "Darling" and "The Servant" but I had never heard of the one I liked best: the theme from "Return from the Ashes". Much later, when I finally saw the movie, I realised how perfectly that lilting melody married with the film."Return from the Ashes" works despite credulity being stretched to breaking point along the way. The true quality of this film is not revealed from a reading of the plot. The movie plays far better than it reads.Shortly before WW2 in Paris, Michelle Wolf, a doctor played by Ingrid Thulin meets a Polish refugee, Stanislaus Pilgrin played by Maximilian Schell. Although warned that he is only after her money, she falls in love with him. When the Germans capture Paris, Stanislaus – in his self-confessed, one gallant act of his life – marries Michelle, who is Jewish, to stop her being deported by the Nazis. But she is sent to a concentration camp anyway.Years later, Michelle returns to Paris under an assumed name. But she is a changed woman emotionally and physically. Thought to be dead, no one recognises her at first. Although she is reacquainted with Stanislaus and her stepdaughter, the beautiful Fabi, played by Samantha Eggar, they believe that she simply bears a strong resemblance to the Michelle they knew. They want her to play Michelle in a complicated plot to retrieve funds that have been frozen since the war. Michelle goes along with the plan not realising that Fabi and Stanislaus have become lovers.After revealing her true identity, Michelle moves into her old apartment with both Stanislaus and Fabi. From there the story becomes darker and darker. After many developments, the movie still has enough energy left to deliver one final twist at the end."Return from the Ashes" boasts three of the most attractive stars you are likely to see in one movie – Ingrid Thulin, Maximilian Schell and Samantha Eggar. For me, Ingrid Thulin is the standout. Beautiful, calm and sophisticated, she gave the impression that there was a lot more going on beneath the surface. It's surprising Hollywood didn't seek her out more often – possibly she would have made one of the great Hitchcock stars – in an interview, he once singled her out as the epitome of the kind of sexiness he admired, especially in her work for Ingmar Bergman.Despite a "Vertigo" like sequence when Michelle is coached to play what is in reality herself, "Return from the Ashes" does not seem overly influenced by either Hitchcock or film noir. The dramatic use of black and white and the moody quality of the film is due to J. Lee Thompson's personal style. The man who made "Cape Fear" proved once again that he could make a thriller to stand with the best of them.
MrPie7
One of those excellent films that has never been released on video or DVD. The first time I watched this there were only 2 other channels and both were showing programs I hated at that particular moment, so I ended up watching this film by default. What luck! I was treated to a beautiful, haunting film that featured great performances by Herbert Lom, Samantha Eggar, Maxmillian Schell and Ingrid Thulin. Thulin's performance in particular is flawless. She is utterly convincing as a death camp survivor trying to return to the world. If cable ever gets tired of endlessly re-running "Jaws", "The Breakfast Club" and "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" (Excellent films but shown 5 nights a week) and happens to air this true gem, be SURE you see/record it. The second time I caught it was on PBS--20 years after my initial viewing.
