Susan Granger’s review of “VARIAN’S WAR” (Showtime TV movie)
In this true story of an unknown W.W.II hero, William Hurt plays Varian Fry, a modest, self-effacing New York editor who became the American Oskar Schindler. At great risk to his own life, he saved prominent artists, musicians and writers, “the soul of Europe,” as well as 2,000 others, from Nazi persecution. Varian Fry’s story begins in the late ’30s when, in Berlin, he saw first-hand the street pogroms. Sickened by Nazi brutality, he joined with novelist Thomas Mann (Michael Rudder) to form the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC) with the blessing of Eleanor Roosevelt (Sheena Larkin). But when he’s refused help by the U.S. State Dept., Fry travels alone to Marseilles in 1940 with a top priority list: painter Marc Chagall (Joel Miller) and his wife (Gloria Carlin), political writer Hannah Arendt (Elyzabeth Walling), historian Heinrich Mann (John Dunn-Hill), novelist Lion Feuchtwanger (Lorne Brass), novelist Franz Werfel (Vlasta Vrana) and his wife (Lynn Redgrave), who smuggles out the original musical manuscripts of her former husband, Gustav Mahler. Fry’s aided by an idealistic American (Julia Ormond), a forger (Alan Arkin) and a refugee (Matt Craven). Written and directed by Lionel Chetwynd, this is an amazing story, not only of courage but of suppression, since the “enemy” was the Vichy French. In the years since W.W.II, there’s been this myth that France was an ally when, in fact, large parts of France were part of the Nazi conspiracy to destroy the culture of Europe. On the Granger TV-Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Varian’s War” is a moving, heroic, engrossing 8. “How we rise to meet the challenge is how our children will judge us,” says Varian Fry – and that’s still true of our dilemmas today. “Varian’s War” premieres on SHOWTIME TV, Sunday, April 22nd, at 8 PM with additional playdates on May 11 at 10 AM and May 15 at 4 PM.
