Thu 27 Dec 2018
A Movie Review by David Vineyard: THE NINA B. AFFAIR (1961).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[7] Comments
THE NINA B. AFFAIR. Bavaria-Filmkunst Verleih, France-Germany, 1961. Originally released as Affäre Nina B and L’affaire Nina B. Nadjia Tiller, Pierre Brasseur, Walter Giller. Screenplay by Roger Nimier, Jacques Roberts and Robert Siodmak, who also directed. Based on the novel by Johannes Maria Simmel.
The irony about the work of Johannes Maria Simmel, an international bestselling Austrian author, chemical engineer, and English translator, is that virtually no one in the United States ever heard of him until writers such as Robert Ludlum and Frederick Forsyth came to the fore of popular spy fiction in the seventies and eighties and his work began to appear here in mass market paperbacks published only as by Simmel (much less foreign sounding than Johannes Maria) and proclaimed to be in the tradition of Ludlum and Forsyth, when he was in reality a contemporary of Helen MacInnes (who his Cold War novels resemble more than Ludlum or Forsyth), Sarah Gainham, Paul Hyde Bonner, and Martha Albrand.
Truth was, Simmell had been writing this sort of thing since 1949 over two decades before Ludlum or Forsyth stuck their hands in, and was far less a thriller writer than a novelist whose work deals with crime and espionage and his personal belief in pacifism, particularly in the aftermath of WW II and the Cold War with often autobiographical references (the antagonist in Nina B. has the same middle name as Simmel) in books like I Confess, Double Agent — Triple Cross, The Caesar Code, and Cain ’67, and who had sixteen books filmed beginning in 1960 as well as penning numerous original screenplays and adaptations. His career and success outside of the American publishing world was quite extensive with twenty-nine books published between 1949 and 1999.
In addition his devotion to pacifism led to numerous awards over his career, including those from his native country and the UN, as well as his being one of the bestselling authors in the world.
Among those works was The Nina B. Affair, which was filmed in Germany in 1961, pre-Bond, directed by noted film noir director Robert Siodmak (who previously filmed Simmel’s Mein Schulfreund in 1960), brother of screenwriter Curt “Donovan’s Brain” Siodmak, Robert returning to Germany and reinventing himself as a director of spectacles, Westerns, and dramas when his American career faltered.
The plot of the 1958 novel borrows pretty freely from both Citizen Kane and Orson Welles’ novel and film Mr. Arkadan, which both owed something to Eric Ambler’s Coffin for Dimitrios, if truth be told, and a Tracy and Hepburn picture Keeper of the Flame based on an I.A.R. Wylie novel, in that it opens at the funeral of the mysterious financier Michel Maria Berrera (Pierre Brasseur), one of those able criminal types beloved by Eric Ambler, in Wiesbaden, West Germany.
The story is told in flashback by Antoine Holden (Walter Giller), a young man just out of prison whose taciturn attitude Berrera admired and who becomes involved with him, and slowly unwinds the twisty tale of a high stakes blackmailer and corrupt businessman, who it is suggested is much darker than we ever see.
Shot in black and white and using many noir touches from the camera angles, wet night streets, isolated shots of the protagonist, and such it’s difficult not to see this as Euro-noir what with the flashback story structure and the dubious nature of most of the characters including the hero and heroine.
Holden first arrives at Berrera’s house as the ambulance has just taken away Berrera’s wife, Nina (Nadjia Tiller) who has just attempted suicide. Berrera hires Holden on the spot and from the beginning he is involved in his intrigues including an urgent trip into East Germany for a briefcase full of papers Berrera is desperate to get so he can blackmail a trio of Nazi war criminals now well to do West German businessmen out of a deal they are making with an emerging African nation.
Berrera ends up in jail with everyone after the papers and Holden faced with violence and bribes and Berrera’s too smooth lawyer, as well as falling for Nina, once Berrera’s secretary, who wants to escape his casual cruelty and overbearing manner.
True to the book, there are no easy answers in the film. Holden and Nina’s brief affair is doomed by her hatred and fear of Berrera, with everything tumbling out of control when Berrera gets out of jail and makes his last big gamble to win the biggest prize of all, control of the African contracts.
Some may find the finale a bit stark, but it is a great last shot and a perfect way to end the dark tale about people who are no more innocent than they have to be, caught in the web of a spider whose morals are as dubious as his weak heart, and ends on a perfect ironic note
Despite a few touches, this is more drama than thriller or suspense, but it clearly benefits from Sidomak’s own American forays into noir storytelling. Acting honors primarily go to Brasseur, who plays Berrera as a fat spider at once threatening and cajoling, generous and ruthless, who plays god with the emotions and feelings of everyone around him, a more subtle James Bond villain, both attractive and evil, and more than deserving of his ironic fate.
December 27th, 2018 at 8:22 pm
By sheer coincidence, this review turns out to be part of this week’s Robert Siodmak retrospective.
December 27th, 2018 at 8:33 pm
As for Simmel, yes, I do indeed remember when his books could be found in paperback wherever you looked here in the US. I don’t recall who published them — Popular Library? Avon? — but I believe they were thicker than most paperbacks and looked well worth the money. I finally couldn’t resist and I bought one, but while I tried more than once, I never got all that far into it. I can easily assume the fault was mine at the time.
December 27th, 2018 at 10:15 pm
Steve,
You were likely expecting a thriller, which the books were packaged as, and more than likely got more of a mainstream novel more interested in character and plot than action and suspense.
I can’t recall who it was that published the Simmel books, but I am pretty sure it was more like Zebra than Popular Library or Avon. I had read one of his books published in hardcover here in the late sixties, but it wasn’t a thriller, and never got a paperback publisher.
I assume some of his books were published in the UK and some American paperback company saw a way to cash in on the Ludlum bandwagon (the Simmel titles did sound like Ludlum) relatively cheaply.
I wasn’t a huge fan myself, but some of the books, like this one, were intriguing for their takes on themes common in straight thrillers. He was probably closer to writers like Leslie Waller or Morris L. West or even Irving Wallace in that he was using thriller and spy novel themes but not really writing standard spy novels. The books I read had more in common with Wallace’s THE PRIZE or West’s TOWER OF BABEL than standard Ludlum or Forsyth style books.
He was marketed here for something he wasn’t so I doubt, despite initial sales to readers hungry for another Ludlum, he had much of a fan base here. I’m not sure he did all that well in the UK either.
December 27th, 2018 at 10:19 pm
Nope, you were right, Popular Library, though it sure didn’t seem like that important a publisher. I can’t recall if there was a regular hardcover release of his books along with these.
December 27th, 2018 at 10:34 pm
Here’s where Hubin’s CFIV comes in handy. Most of Simmel’s books that were published in this country were done by Popular Library as paperback originals, about a dozen of them. Three or four were first published in hardcover in the US by either McGraw or Random House. I assume that Popular Library then did the paperback editions, all within a span of ten years or so, which explains why you saw them all over the place at the time.
December 28th, 2018 at 10:19 am
“Well here’s ANOTHER one for the Want-List, Stanley!”
Seriously, David, that was a fine review.
December 28th, 2018 at 10:30 pm
There is a decent print on YouTube in French. The closed captioning allows for English subtitles, but it is a pretty shaky translation with some real howlers when it comes to pronouns and tenses. You can follow the plot however with a little effort.