Cast members of "The Harmonists."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: Ben Becker and Ulrich Noethen Director: Joseph Vilsmaier Rated: R, with brief nudity Length: 115 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(April 9, 1999) -- Compared to so many other German Jews of the 1930s, Harry Frommermann, Roman Cycowski and Erwin Bootz must be considered fortunate. They escaped the Holocaust with their lives.

But there are other things to lose. In their case, it was the dream to remain part of one of the most successful singing groups in the history of European popular music.

That's the true-life, show-biz story of The Harmonists, a German film starring Ben Becker and Ulrich Noethen.

Frommermann, Cycowski, Bootz and three Gentile friends formed The Comedian Harmonists in Berlin in 1927, successfully adapting the elegant, easygoing a capella harmony style of an American group, The Revelers, to German popular song.

In a few short years, the sextet was singing to standing-room audiences around the world and selling thousands of German-language recordings of such hits as Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear, Creole Love Call and Veronika, Der Lenz Ist Da.

But the Nazis, who came to power in 1933, increasingly objected to a group membership that included Jews, and to a song repertoire that didn't include enough flag-waving German fare.

By 1934, the group was forced to disband, and the Jewish members escaped Germany.

German filmmaker Joseph Vilsmaier shows obvious admiration and attention to detail in recreating the group's art deco elegance, their relationships among themselves and with various friends and lovers, their playfulness on and off stage, and their poignant final performance.

The music -- entirely from original Harmonists recordings -- is effectively woven into the story, and the actors lip-synch admirably. (I can't wait to get the soundtrack album. It may be 55 years since the Harmonists broke up, but they've gained at least one more new fan.)

If the story of the Comedian Harmonists could have been told without the shadow of the swastika, it would be yet another film in the long line of show-biz biopics.

But with the Nazis threatening from the wings, The Harmonists becomes a more meaningful tale of art struggling to survive in an increasingly artless society. It's a bittersweet story of thwarted dreams.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the Harmonists combined the talents of Jews and Aryans and made beautiful music. Hitler's hatemongers couldn't hear it.