What makes it different from others?

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Actor Paul Andor (real name Wolfgang Zilzer) bears a striking resemblance to the real Dr. Paul Goebbels, the evil Nazi head of Propaganda who spent one day as Chancellor of Germany after Hitler's suicide before killing himself. This semi-fictional account of his life takes the basic known facts and changes the names and details, but it still has a major impact on the emotional structure of this Monogram film that is two notches above most of their "B" films, giving it almost an "A" look. Claudia Drake is top billed as Maria Brandt, an actress loosely based upon the real life actress Lída Baarová who was Goebbel's real life mistress. This film does not mention the fact that he had a wife and six children (murdered by him and his wife right before they killed themselves) and does not go into great detail about most of his evils which were probably discovered after the war ended. But being made while Goebbels was still alive, this was definitely a curiosity piece in the Hollywood propaganda machine, just as effective as "The Hitler Gang" (the story of Hitler's rise to power with a warning of how he would ultimately fall) and "None Shall Escape" which cast Alexander Knox as a Nazi officer on trial AFTER the war even though it was made the same year. One of the most chilling sequences comes when a medium forecasts the futures of Goebbel and several other Nazi's in the room (including General Rommel) but only includes their triumphs, not the ultimate fall from power and retribution. Andor is off screen for much of the film as the story of actress Drake and her romance with a good German doctor (Donald Woods) takes over. It then moves to his blackmail over Drake in threatening Woods' safety after they return to Germany, having settled in Vienna. Told in flashback, the storyline has Goebbels remembering his first encounter with Hitler and how he first met Brandt as a struggling playwright working as a tutor. Even then, he was teaching values which were adopted by the Nazi's. When he makes a violent pass at Brandt, her World War I veteran father (an excellent H.B. Warner) throws him out which leads to later revenge on him and reveals his obsession with her. While he is definitely presented as monstrous, Goebbels is also given shadows of sympathetic characteristics, being quite in tuned to the arts which makes his being chosen head of propaganda (which would include movies, theater and radio) a smart move on Hitler's part even though it is obvious through history that their choice of subject matter for the U.F.O. (the major German film company) was one sided. Supporting performances by Sigrid Gurie, Ralph Morgan, Gloria Stuart and Robert Barrat add great period detail. There's a funny sequence in a Vienna café where impersonators of Hitler, Goebbels and Mussolini do a musical number. The tension of the film rises to its high point in the finale where the defeated Drake makes a drastic decision and must distract her husband in order to save his life. The final shot of Andor searching amongst the rubble of an air raid and his radio narration of the events which have recently taken place give forbearance to the creed that fascist leaders manipulate their followers through lies whether it be done blatantly or with total charm, but indeed, they are lies, and liars are always exposed.

I rented this film from Netflix because I was hoping to see yet another over the top propaganda film from WWII--the type that are almost funny because the acting and characters are so over the top. However, I was very surprised to see that "Enemy of Women" was actually rather restrained. Heck, I could even see some viewers actually feeling a bit of sympathy for the focus of the film--Dr. Josef Goebbels! The film begins as Berlin is in ruins--and a radio broadcast by Dr. Goebbels is telling the people that everything is peachy. Then, the film goes back in time to 1925 and eventually works its way back to where the film began. You see Goebbels as a rather insecure man--a guy who has a difficult time with women. He is secretly in love with his landlord's daughter, Maria. When he makes a very awkward advance on her, her father throws him out of the home. And, inexplicably, Goebbels spends the entire rest of the film trying to win her love. However, along the way, Goebbels shows that he's a lover not to be trifled with and uses the power he achieves from the Nazi party to get his revenge.This entire film is weird--very weird. That's because it seems like a real biography of the man--though most of it is fiction. Yes, there was a Goebbels and he was a sick and twisted jerk--but oddly, the Goebbels in this film is a bit vulnerable. Sure, he's evil...but somehow not altogether hateful. Because of this somewhat human aspect, the film is a standout for the genre, as propaganda films usually try very hard to de-humanize the enemy. Mind you, this did not make Goebbels look exactly good---but he was indeed human and vulnerable. Overall, it's well made and actually ages pretty well. Just remember that this is NOT a real biography, as the real Goebbels was much more complex and sick.

The story of this Monogram movie is loosely based on the life and times of Nazi criminal and German propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. Viewers who have the habit of first checking if every button and leather strap of the actor's different Nazi Uniforms are the right size and in the right place will have reason to be displeased. The movie does not aim at historical or geographical accuracy.Despite of its shortcomings – or maybe just because of them – the basic message is plain and clear: Tyranny means the abolition of law and order and the arbitrary, unabashed invasion of any kind of private sphere and individual freedom. And unhealthy characters will enjoy unlimited power. Goebbels is depicted as a randy „suck-upper". First he quite literally sucks up to the daughter of his landlord, an aspiring actress with whom he reads Roemo and Juliet helping her to prepare for the part of Juliet. The girl pushes the heated up guy away, Goebbels stumbles backwards and falls over a chair. The girl laughs at him lying there as her father, a general, enters and without further ado kicks him out.This slight brings on Goebbel's lifelong persecution of the girl. He leaves the general's house, crosses the street, gets into a beer hall and – what do you know? – there is a guy there (only seen from a distance) giving a clumsy speech about the Fatherland, Germany's humiliation etc. Freshly humiliated Goebbels instantly sucks up to him, inventing the Hitler salute on the way. His rise to power has begun and soon he can do with the girl whatever he pleases. And he doesn't miss the opportunity. She is for him just a trophy to own, the tragic final scene that shows her in a kind of a golden cage, just helplessly standing there as bombs fall on Berlin make that plainly clear.Enemy of Women succeeds in making the viewers understand the mechanics of tyranny – it is closer to Charles Chaplin's The Great Dictator than to movies made later, when the USA had larger war experience. Even the heroine's flight to Free Austria is reminiscent of Chaplin's movie. John Alton's camera-work of course is a major asset, he was a true master of shadow and light. One scene of bliss for the girl and her future husband is remarkable as sticks as being extremely bright, almost blinding. I don't know how much the editing is responsible for the effect, in any case, I will not forget it. I also wondered if the director or the cameraman (or both) fell in love with Claudia Drake. Especially in the second part of the movie she is stunningly beautiful and gets a lot of screen time in the most favorable light.The small Cinémathèque suisse recently released a DVD with its oldest treasures ("Il était une fois... la Suisse" Images cinématographiques des années 1896-1934). The last item is a newsreel report of Dr. Goebbels after a visit to the League of Nations in Geneva in 1934. Before boarding a waiting Junkers 52 he delivers a short speech saying that the German people want nothing but peace and that the German government will do anything in its power to secure it forever. He really was an unscrupulous, intelligent and eloquent liar. The final speech in Enemy of Women struck me as having exactly the same tone and phrasing. The makers of this movies must have studied the „original" carefully.

Considering its lowly Gower Gulch origins, and compared with the overblown hysterics and buffoonish characterizations of most Hollywood propaganda films, this is a remarkably heartfelt and even-handed treatment of lurid and melodramatic material. Goebbels is delineated as a tragically flawed human being rather than a cartoonish ogre, and his final scene amidst the rubble is strangely ambivalent. Much credit must go to director Zeisler (best known for his minimal-budget adaptation of "Crime and Punishment", entitled "Fear") who has taken measures to add a psychological and emotional background to the principals, despite the cardboard situations and some risible theatrical devices (particularly Goebbels' incidental invention of the "Heil Hitler" salute). Equally praiseworthy is the noirish cinematography of the incomparable John Alton, whose precise lighting of eyes, faces and profiles adds so much depth to the characterizations.