Saturday, September 28, 2013

Lisa



heartwarming
I first saw this film many years ago when I was a teenager and instantly fell in love with it. Over the years it could be seen on tv quite frequently but then as so often happens the powers that be stopped making it available.
As the film begins we see Stephen Boyd's charactor hunting Lisa as though she were some sort of criminal, but then the unthinkable happens and he begins to see how deeply she longs to return to her homeland and begins a long and illegal journey with her to make her dream come true making himself a wanted man himself in the process.
I don't want to give away what happens but suffice it to say that as the story progresses the viewer is drawn in and begins to want that happy ending we all hope each film has. In it's own way it does happen here but only with a great deal of love and sacrifice.
For those who are looking for a film with integrity, a good story, good acting and a few twists and turns to keep your attention, then this is it.

Unforgettable
I saw "Lisa" exactly one time, many decades ago, when I was a kid. I watched it on a black and white TV, late at night, interrupted by many annoying commercials. I've never forgotten "Lisa": Dolores Hart played a Holocaust survivor determined, by any means necessary, to get to Palestine at a time when the British were interdicting such arrivals. Ruggedly handsome Stephen Boyd was Inspector Jongman. He began by hindering Lisa's pilgrimage and ended up helping her. For comic relief, there was Hugh Griffith, a smuggler who used a tennis racket in his ongoing battle with the bats that invaded his exotic Tangiers apartment at dusk.

Most importantly, I never shook the feeling that the film aroused in me - this film literally made me sick, and terrified, but it also moved and inspired me.

In the intervening years, I read somewhere that "Lisa" was an early attempt to depict the Holocaust in a mainstream Hollywood movie. That just increased my curiosity. Some kind soul...

Holocaust Survivor
I saw "Lisa" many years ago and forgot both the name of the movie and the stars, but I never forgot the emotional impact of the story. Today I stumbled across it on TV and watched it again, finding the same emotional impact. We must never let the world forget the Holocaust and the survivors all have a story that is important for us to remember. Palestine and its beginnings are part of this story.

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