Le Silence De La Mer (French, DVD)

Jean Pierre Melville's debut film is an adaptation of the novella by French resistance author Vercors (the pen name of Jean Bruller), which was clandestinely written in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of France in WWII and furtively distributed, becoming a staple of the Resistance. Melville's cinematic adapatation - partly shot in Vercors' own house - tells the story of a German officer, Werner von Ebrennac (Howard Vernon), who is billeted to the house of an elderly man (Jean-Marie Robain) and his niece (Nicole Stephane) in occupied France. Resisting the intruder, the uncle and niece refuse to speak to the German officer, who warms himself by the fire each evening espousing idealistic views about the relationship between France and Germany. These propagandist illusions are shattered, however, when a trip to Paris reveals the truth of what is really going on.