Der Stern von Afrika (1957)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

"Der Stern von Afrika" is an interesting movie to watch particularly for all the now rare Spanish Hispano Aviación HA-1112 K1Ls with Hispano-Suiza engines (in other words they are not real Messerschmitts) used in the filming, not so very authentic if you are an aircraft buff, but all very well done. ​Mostly it was filmed in Spain.This is a 1957​ ​German movie and is based on Luftwaffe Ace Hans-Joachim Marseille, who d​ied 30 September 1942 (age 22​) at Sidi Abdel Rahman, Egypt​. Marseille's usual aircraft number was Yellow 14 we can see two Yellow 14's in one shot!

"Der Stern von Afrika" or "The Star of Africa" or "Hauptmann Marseille" is a West German black-and-white film from 1957 and like an uncountable number of other German films from that decade, it is a cinematic attempt at coming to terms with what happened more than a decade earlier in Nazi Germany. But this film is not really about those who were totally in charge and what they did, but really more about these following orders, namely a very young generation of German pilots, especially Hans Joachim Marseille, a man who really existed. I must say I have not been familiar with the name at all, but after seeing this film, he must have been the World War II equivalent to Manfred von Richthofen. It is about a new generation of men, blinded by wrong ideas and by their enthusiasm and nationalistic spirit that they imbibed from their infancy. So despite the film being pretty wild and enthusiastic, it is actually a fairly sad story really how this generation was somewhat lost, especially the title character too. He is played by Joachim Hansen and I cannot say I have heard the name before I think. But Felmy and Koch are still somewhat known today to German film fans, maybe Hansen too and it's just my failure. Overall, the story of this 100-minute film was not too interesting to me, maybe because military-themed movies have never been my preferred choice really. If you think differently about the subject, then you may actually enjoy the watch a lot more than I did. I personally would have preferred watching a documentary on the subject.

I watched this film right after a screening of Käutner's "Grosse Freiheit Nr 7", which premiered in December 1944. And suddenly I realized, what it is that makes Käutner's film a true masterpiece: "Star of Africa", even though a "war" film, lacks the atmosphere of war totally. It is a superfluous, totally empty film with nothing much in it to recommend it. "Grosse Feiheit", which doesn't show a single swastika (neither does "Star of Africa" to that matter) is nevertheless shrouded heavily into that special gloomy mood, which tells us that there is a REAL war out there, a war that is soon to be lost for good; and that's what makes one film tense and bitterly sad, while the other film, though heavy with air fights, battlefield situations and actual footage (thrown quite pointlessly here and there), is reminiscent of a fifties TV show. This film (both English dubbed and subtitled version) can be ordered from International Historic Films.

The story shows the career of a once famous german flyer nobody remembers today... After ww2, these guys, who were styled to be the pop stars of the third reich, still were quite popular. People didn´t think of them as nazis or war criminals, but as young men with a noble profession: Pilots of the german luftwaffe. The picture has a lot of air fights, a love affair and oldfashioned acting in it. If that is something you like, take a closer look at the video that is still available in germany.