There have been other portrayals of fatal relationships arising in wartime. This one sets out to have great pathos but lacks conviction, due to the lack of chemistry between the principals. I have to lay the blame with Marius Goring (whom I like in other things). He holds the heroine very stiffly, and plants blunt passionless kisses on her face, mostly missing her lips. As it appeared the last thing he wanted to do was kiss a girl, I was led to the hypothesis he was of the other persuasion, although I can't find any support for this in IMDb. Maybe it's mostly that expressions of passion were very stylized and formal in the films of the 1950s. Anyway,a passionate lover he is not, although he is good in the persona of the arrogant Nazi. Maria Schell is lovely and very simpatico, although the celestial smile on her face is over-used. The story is effective in depicting her as naive and confused, although as her character acts more and more foolishly towards the end, I rapidly lost sympathy. There is plenty of suspense and it's a good-looking film. It could have been so much more engaging with better acting and direction, hence a 5.

So Little Time is the moving WWII tale of a 20 year-old girl (Maria Schell) in occupied Belgium who falls in love with 45 year-old German commandant (Marius Goring). The movie is based on the novel 'Je Ne Suis Pas Une Heroine' ('I Am Not A Heroine') by Noelle Henry. As others have said, a German-dubbed version of the movie was released on DVD but the original English-language version was (bizarrely) never included. The German DVD title for the movie is 'Wenn Das Herz Sprecht' ('When The Heart Speaks').I definitely share the pain of all those who have searched high and low for this movie. My own search for it has taken over 5 long years and, among many things, even included contacting descendants of the starring actors. BUT NOW, some GREAT NEWS! A copy of the original English version has now been found! If you are interested, get in touch.Rob

(Warning: Some viewers will be disturbed that the following words of mine aren't exactly a review, and they start on-topic but then go tangential for a while.)For the record: Even as I peck at my keyboard now, Australia's digital television channel Gem is showing the original undamaged English-dialogue version of _So Little Time_ (Gem's timetable labels it as a "premiere", whatever that means). Thanks, Nine Network—you're a jewel for visiting some dungeon of a vault to grant brief parole to this engrossing movie.BTW-1: Barbara Mullen's Anna brings to my mind's eye and ear BM's Janet MacPherson, who in all 191 (! but not as many as _Wagon Train_) episodes of the BBC's black-and-white television series _Dr Finlay's Casebook_ between 1962 and 1971 keeps house for Andrew Cruickshank's Dr Cameron and Bill Simpson's Dr Finlay. Now, _that's_ a gem that seems to have disappeared from the world's living-rooms. If we can be fed umpteen black-and-white episodes of _Wagon Train_, enjoyable enough though they are, then perhaps we should also be prescribed at least one repeat dose of television's first series of A J Cronin's classic tales from Arden House in interbellum Scotland.BTW-2: _So Little Time_ seems to evade the radar of Leonard Maltin, but not of Halliwell.

I saw this film in the very early 60s on a NYC local channel that broadcast a show called Million Dollar Movie, in which the same film was shown every single night for one week. I was 13 or 14 and my mother was away, so I was free to watch it every night, which I did! (She would have scoffed at my teary romanticism.) All its elements -- WW II, resistance fighters, family betrayal, sympathetic German officer and a beautiful and conflicted young woman -- combined to make an unforgettable film. I have never forgotten it, remembering very specific scenes to this day, and I too would give anything to have a copy of it. My daughter lives in Germany, perhaps she can get me the German edition (even tho it is dubbed).