The Big Lift

• Montgomery Clift: Danny MacCullough
• Cornell Borchers: Friederike Burckhardt
• Paul Douglas: Hank Kowalski
• Bruni Lobel: Gerda
• O. E. Hasse: Russian spy

It started with a kiss ( Alternative title: The Four divided city ) is a 1949 film incurred at the time of the Berlin Airlift. Premiere of the film was 1950. In Germany the film came in 1953 in the cinemas.

Action

Sgt Danny MacCulluogh and Sgt Hank Kowalski come in 1949 with her squadron to Berlin to support their comrades in maintaining the airlift. At the airport he meets at an official ceremony in which - staged for the press - Berlin symbolically the American flight crews of the airlift show their gratitude, know the German Trümmerfrau Frederica Burkhardt. Danny can take a day off and spend an eventful day with her in the ruins of Berlin, learns to know their living conditions and falls in love with her.

His comrade Hank Kowalski, who has a German mistress named Gerda, the relationship is, however, skeptical. He has had bad experiences with the Germans in German prisoner of war and considers the entire population guilty to the plight of the country. He treats his own girlfriend correspondingly poor, while Danny is facing the Germans very open and friendly.

Danny intends to marry Friederike without knowing that they are only using him to come to the United States to their beloved. However, shortly before the wedding flies on this double game.

Reviews

" Berlin period and local color make the superficial, pathetic, twisted by a factual report view movie after all worth it."

Awards

The film was nominated in 1951 for the promotion of international understanding for the Golden Globe Award.