Currently available only on Netflix streaming is this hitherto unbeknownst to me big budget, ponderous, confusingly edited, reasonably engrossing, mildly titillating melodrama from Dino De Laurentiis, FRAULEIN DOKTOR (1968). Also known as FRAULEIN DOCTOR (on Netflix), it's the story of a German morphine-addict bisexual super spy, and is clearly structured along a DR. ZHIVAGO (1965) template, which is to say, it has big elaborate international WW1/Russian Revolution-era sweep; Jarre-ish orchestral soundtrack (by Ennio!), a superfluously detailed train journey; a big crowd scene gas attack, and romantic leads who look a lot like Julie Christie and Omar Shariff (Suzy Kendall and James Booth).
However, this ain't your mom's ZHIVAGO clone, unless your mom is a lesbian junky super spy working for WW1 Germany. The opening barbed wire silhouette and deep color splotch credit design is something straight out of the Corman Poe series, which is the next best thing to Saul Bass in the cool credits depts, and in some ways its kin are less ZHIVAGO and more the Marlene Dietrich Von Sternberg collaboration DISHONORED / Garbo's code-ruined MATA HARI... but 'bigger' and far dirtier, and more allegedly true. It dips its toes in a druggy kind of debauched super genius nastiness--our fraulein shoots up a lot of morphine, and when she stares lustily at the shots being given to dying soldiers, you feel her longing - and the lesbian seduction has a creepy Aldrich-ish freakshow quality--while staying true to the Zhivagosian 'sweep.' It's got De Laurentiis' fingerprints all over it, and most of all, as per De Laurentiis' best works, there's a sense of real moral ambiguity, where immorality is championed and condemned in equal measure.
I never did much cotton to ZHIVAGO (the only character I liked was Rod Steiger's, so it made rooting for Omar a real hard task) but I dig that FRAULEIN takes what it wants (sweep, time period, trains) and leaves the rest, and that it keeps itself under two hours, and doesn't get lost in a maddening love story so much as have occasional touches of 'what might have been' but may or may not be two lovers bullshitting each other. But for all the differences, there's no doubt what blockbuster film our FRAULEIN is aping. Below are a bunch of stills and such... can you guess which are from Doctor Zhivago and which Doctor Fraulein?
(Answers, top to bottom: Zhivago 1, 4 / Fraulein - 2,3,5)
Far less lush than Dr. Z, and occasionally dopey, Dr. F is still underrated, under-seen and would be just a stilted sweeper ala ENGLISH PATIENT, except for one thing -- Ennio Morricone!
Ennio Morricone was more than just the guy who brought electric guitars to the western, or children's sing song la la la's to giallo -- he proved that the right music could 'make' a movie appear out of nothing but a bunch of scenes. Under his baton the score became as essential an ingredient as actors or dialogue, even more so where international films are concerned and dubbing issues could often muddle and sour the story without a weird musical score to fill in the blanks. DOKTOR's long lesbian scenes with Cappucine, the druggy 'shooting up' music when our junky anti-heroine fumbles for her vial; or the heroic little gestures of the Giancarlo Giannini's world weary spy, are amped up like a case of delirium tremenswhen Morricone is working the magic. Suddenly something that is inert becomes tragic and larger than life. Make no mistake, without Morricone, Italian exploitation cinema, from giallo to Laurentiis' blockbusters, would be nothing!
The film is all allegedly true, but you know espionage tales, you'll never get straight facts. Just enjoy the luridness and the first rate cast: Capucine (above) as a lesbian poison gas designer; Kenneth More as the head of British Intelligence; Nigel Green (COUNTESS DRACULA) as the head of German Intelligence, and a large crew of extras marching around in gas masks for the big finale, making me wonder if Ralph Bakshi used this movie for 'rotoscoping' backgrounds in WIZARDS. Best of all, it's World War One, not World War Two, so the German were still 'sporting' and 'gentlemanly' to a degree. You don't have to hate them as badly as you would in a few years. It's also worth scoping out if you liked, say, a very similar international De Laurentiis film that mixed adult elements like drugs, (real) animal killing, hot girls, and lesbianism in with its 'historical' story, BLUEBEARD (1972). All that's missing, really, is what saved BLUEBEARD from Burton's boozy somnambulistic hamming, a little minx named Joey Heatherton.
Joey Heatherton... you make life complete. And FRAULEIN DOKTOR, you're not far behind. Firing Squad, commence streaming!
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