A Foreign Affair Page #4

That's hard if you don't have

a home to start with.

We had to repair hospitals

and public utilities.

I remember the first day the gasworks

started operating again.

There were 160 suicides in Berlin alone.

That was ten months ago.

Today, they take a match and light

the gas and boil some potatoes.

Not many potatoes, mind you.

There is still a lot of hunger.

But there is a new will to live.

We had to build schools and find teachers

and then teach the teachers.

We helped them start a free press

and institute a parliamentary government.

They had their first free

election in 14 years.

It had been so long

they didn't know what to do.

It was like handing

the village drunk a glass of water.

What I want to point out is that

it's a tough, thankless, lonely job.

We're trying to lick it as well as we can.

You might as well know,

some of us get out of line occasionally.

But remember this.

For the first time in history,

you are asking the same generation of

soldiers to be both valorous and wise.

- Mighty fine.

- Well said.

I sure hope our chairman has

made notes of that speech of yours.

I think it should be

incorporated in our report.

Colonel, we buy every

word of it, all of us.

I don't.

I wouldn't think of buying it. I'm surprised

at my colleagues' low sales resistance.

Miss Frost, this attitude calls

for some explanation.

Colonel Plummer, in your eloquent speech,

which I'm sure you've made 50 times,

you used the phrase "Some of our boys

may get out of line sometimes."

That is a masterpiece of understatement.

What are you driving at?

In your effort to civilise this country,

our boys are becoming barbarians.

- I explained on that tour...

- I know all about those tours.

You put blinkers on us and make sure

we only see what you want us to see.

Then you give us pamphlets,

statistics, a rousing speech

and ship us back a little more

bamboozled than when we came.

We could have learned

as much from Reader's Digest.

- This is very embarrassing, Colonel.

- Go on, Miss Frost.

Well, I don't like blinkers.

I look in all directions

and when I suspect dirt's been swept

under a carpet, I turn up that carpet.

- What carpet? What dirt?

- What dirt?

- One day and this is filled with it.

- Please particularise.

Gls consorting with German Fruleins...

Fraternisation is legal.

in wide-open, shameless,

black-market nightclubs.

So we close them and our boys sneak off

to places in the Russian sector,

or the British, or in the French,

and there's another thing.

This is off the record.

Those places attract a lot of scum

and we clean it up by cracking down

with a surprise raid once in a while.

Notorious Nazi entertainers parading

themselves before our boys,

- is that off the record too?

- For instance?

I am specifically referring

to one Erika von Schltow,

who works at a dive called the Lorelei,

How can a creature...

I insist on a satisfactory explanation.

I must ask the Congresswoman

to drop this particular matter.

- Why?

- Some things must be left to our discretion.

Colonel Plummer, I didn't go for

the blinkers. Now, don't try a muzzle.

The last time someone wanted to gag me,

he tried it with a mink coat

but I never let go until the president

of that particular ship company

wound up in jail,

even though I did get

pneumonia that winter.

Herr Maier, this is the second time

we've had complaints.

I don't think it's a good idea

that your son... What's his name?

Gerhard.

That Gerhard should draw swastikas

all over the neighbourhood.

- I will break his arm.

- We've dissolved the Gestapo.

No food, Brschchen.

I will lock him into a dark room.

Why not just shove him in a gas chamber?

Yes, Herr Kapitn.

Listen, we've done away

with concentration camps.

Take him round to a G YA,

one of our German youth clubs.

Some baseball and a little less

heel-clicking is what he needs.

Here's the address. Ask for Sergeant Breen.

Yes, Herr Kapitn.

I mean, thank you, Herr Kapitn.

Auf Wiedersehen.

Come, Brschchen.

- Captain Pringle is wanted in 112.

- Who's that?

That Congress dame,

whatever her name is.

- Wants to see me?

- You, sir.

- Now?

- Now. She's clucking like a hen.

You'd better get there

before she lays an egg.

- Captain Pringle reporting.

- Hello.

- Lorelei, how do you spell it?

- Lorelei?

l-E or E-I at the end?

E-I.

Thank you.

Captain Pringle, my belief in the army

has been shaken to the core.

- Really?

- I can't trust anybody in uniform.

- Now, please...

- With one single exception, you.

Thank you, ma'am.

I trust you because we're both Iowans.

- Right back at you, Miss Frost.

- Moreover, you're a hard worker.

Perhaps you work too hard. You look tired.

Well, I hoped it didn't show.

That is ink, Captain Pringle.

- So it is.

- Captain, I need your help.

I want some additional data

on Frulein von Schltow.

The one with the umlaut.

- Oh, her.

- There must be a file on that woman.

- Of course there is. Only it's not here.

- It isn't?

I asked for it

and I was told it's gone to Nrnberg.

On account of the trials,

a lot of files have been sent there.

- I see.

- I asked around, though.

- Did you find anything?

- Nothing important. Gossip.

Are you sure? No fire with all that smoke?

She may have known

a couple of minor party members.

Nothing worth your attention.

Small fry, I'd say.

- All right, ma'am, we're ready to go.

- Thank you.

A warrant officer said he'd seen her

in an old newsreel,

so I sent for the film

from the Signal Corp.

"The Week In Pictures."

This is a little Nazi

get-together in Breslau.

That's Goebbels telling them

how they're winning the war.

Opening of the opera with Lohengrin

and famous guests.

(Frost) They fiddled big

while Berlin burned.

Lohengrin, you know, swan song.

Now we're getting someplace.

I wonder what holds up that dress.

Must be that German willpower.

- Who's that man?

- I think it's Birgel.

- Who?

- Hans Otto Birgel.

Who is Hans Otto Birgel?

He had something to do

with the Gestapo. He's dead.

- Killed himself when the Russians came.

- An important party member?

So-so.

Well, she must be his girlfriend.

Maybe she doesn't know him.

Maybe she had a dizzy spell

and the first thing she could catch

was his... elbow.

That's enough. Thank you.

Well, we've learned one thing.

No small fry is she.

- I guess not.

- That a Nazi woman like that should...

I'll see she discontinues

her appearances as an entertainer.

- Will that be satisfactory?

- It will not.

What would you suggest, shave her head?

- I'm not after her head.

- Well?

It's common talk that an officer

in the army is protecting her.

- It's his head I'm after.

- You really think an officer?

Incredible as it may seem.

Now, let's use some common sense.

That man is not giving her

his protection for platonic reasons.

- Granted?

- Granted.

Of course the association is undercover.

He's not stupid enough

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes