In my opinion as a Dutch person, this is easily our best film, if not the only good film we have. Also as a student of history and avid war movie buff, I think it has all the excitement you could ask of this sort of espionage story.
Thanks again Johnny... Never heard of the movie... I am now going to track a copy down... Same year as Bridge Too Far... Which... as I laugh, I took my friends sister to, I and she was 15.... Snogged her in the bus stop near the cinema... Never saw her again... But a year later entered the army as junior boy soldier..... Jesus how time flies... 😢
The dutch did fight in ww2. Dutch navy fought some impressive battles with the Japanse early in the war. Allied named a dutch naval commander Ship day helfrich he sank 54 enemy ships in 54 days
Man he honestly one of the greatest directors of our generation. He consistently showed talent through out most of his career. When I heard of this movie I was surprised to see that Paul Verhoeven had such talent even as far back that then.
Good movie. Rijk de Gooijer played Gestapo man Breitner very well. Rijk de Gooijer was a resistance fighter in WW2 who swam across the Waal during Market Garden to join the 101 airborne and later the British. He interrogated Gestapo and SS officers involved in the arrest of Himmler and the liberation of Bergen Belzen. Postwar, Rijk had a drinking problem and lost all awards in a fire in 1973.
Rijk de Gooijer also had contacts with ex resistance hero and later Dutch Gangster Pistolen Paultje a.k.a Paul Wilking. Mr. de Gooijer also played the gestapo man in "The Lucky Star" in 1980.
I saw this in the theater when it came out. It was the first time I ever heard of Rutger Hauer. I don't remember seeing hi again until Nighthawks where he played the bad guy vs Stallone.
Jeroen Krabbé (The role of Guus) had made a kind of WW2 drama in 1988 in addition to this film and "In Schaduw der Overwinning" (1986) which was entitled: "Shadowman": Directed by Piotr Andrejew. Everything indicates that this film takes place in Amsterdam in 1943, although this is not stated.
Wow Johnny, i have to see this film. What a privilege to fly a Mosquito from the start. This was like the Ferrari of fighter planes. BTW, finally i see your face. Cheers mate, thanks for the video.
It is an excellent movie about the Dutch experience of the war, well worth seeing. One of the aspects of the invasion that is well covered in this movie is the widespread use of German soldiers dressed in Dutch attire that were used to infiltrate the Dutch lines and the confusion and pararnoia it caused. There is a scene where they have to say a Dutch word only Dutch know how to pronounce, though I fear for the fates of people with an accent from the south of the Netherlands that have a different accent for pronouncing the "Sch" letter combination in the word "Scheveningen".
I read Soldier of Orange decades ago. You say it's a novel. I thought it was a factual memoir. Are you sure it's a novel? There was nothing in the book to indicate it as a work of fiction. PS: Verhoeven is very funny talking on commentary for Starship Troopers, highlighting his childhood in occupied Holland. His street had a V2 set up on it and found itself obliterated. He and everyone else ate tulips in the Hunger Winter of 1944 - 45 - it's the way he tells it. His Black Book is ridiculously contrived and an inferior film, though a lot more money was spent on it.
Uhm at 1:30 you claim that the Dutch didn't fight during the war because they were neutral. That is not entirely true. When the Germans invaded the Netherlands on May the 10th 1940 the Dutch army, navy and airforce did put up a fight although they had to capitulate after five days after Rotterdam was bombed by the Nazi's and threatening to give other Dutch cities the same treatment.
I think the viewer lost track of the sentence. You were referring to the neutrality of WW1, but mister Nijhoff didn't quite follow the sentence and jumped on the comments.
