5/10
The Reich shall rise again
20 January 2016
The Devil Makes Three was made as part of a deal that Gene Kelly made with MGM whereby he would work abroad to take advantage of tax rulings and would also get the go ahead from the studio to do his Invitation To The Dance, a project he longed cherished. All studios liked to keep their contract players even though during the age of television studios were reducing their payrolls. You didn't have a musical on tap, then MGM would slot you into a non-musical. Kelly had made a few of them for his studio before. A later film done in Great Britain, Crest Of A Wave, was part of this package as well.

Nothing terribly special about The Devil Makes Three. Kelly is a serviceman and he's on leave in Germany and looking for a family that had sheltered him when he was shot down. He finds the daughter grown up to be Pier Angeli and she's pretty disillusioned with life singing in a cabaret now.

But Army Intelligence has its eye on her and Kelly is contacted by Richard Rober and Richard Egan to pursue a love affair as if he needed any encouraging and keep an eye for her associates. Her associates turn out to be neo-Nazis.

The best thing about The Devil Makes Three is the location cinematography in Munich, Salzburg, and most especially the winter scenes at Hitler's home away from home Berchtesgarden. Looking at those mountains had he not wanted a Gotterdaemerung ending to his Reich he could have made one nasty fight in those mountains that might have prolonged the European war for a year or two.

It's a routine action adventure, Kelly was always a good actor and most people cite his role in Inherit The Wind as proof of that. And Pier Angeli has thought aura of tragedy that her real life was.
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