Return from the Ashes

Maximilian Schell - Stanislaus Pilgrin
Samantha Eggar - Fabienne
Ingrid Thulin - Dr. Michele Wolf
Herbert Lom - Dr. Charles Bovard
Talitha Pol - Claudine

Return from the Ashes is an implausible thriller directed by J. Lee Thompson and based on the improbable novel by Hubert Monteilhet. The production, filmed at Borehamwood in England, carries all the hallmarks of a nourish melodrama but the plot development, which builds around a scheme for the perfect murder, is greatly contrived. Maximilian Schell delivers strongly performance as the heartless Stanislaus, lending integrity to the character by constantly underplaying his scenes. The attractive Samantha Eggar is convincingly amoral as the stepdaughter but its Ingrid Thulin’s naivety and compliance in the role of an intelligent doctor that stretches credibility.

Liberated France 1945, on a train journey to Paris a young boy tragically falls from the train but one gaunt passenger in the carriage remains unmoved, Dr. Michele Wolf (Ingrid Thulin), the other passengers are shocked by her lack of feeling until observing the concentration camp number tattooed on her forearm. Michele checks into an unassuming cheap Paris hotel under the pseudonym Mrs. Robert, and proceeds to phone the husband, Stanislaus Pilgrin (Maximilian Schell), she hasn’t seen since the Germans invaded France and rounded up all the Jews. Stan answers the phone, but Michele hears a female voice in the background and quickly hangs up.

In flashback we observe how the two met, Michele was a successful and wealthy doctor working at a nearby hospital; Stan was a penniless Polish rake whose only interests are chess and money. The two marry to hopefully avoid the Nazi clampdown in Paris, despite Michele knowing Stan doesn’t love her, but on her wedding day Michele is arrested and interned in Dachau concentration camp. She survived by working in the camp brothel. Michele is thought to be dead by everybody who knew her, and when her step-daughter Fabienne (Samantha Eggar) spots her in the street she believes she has seen a woman who could double for Michele and help to claim her held fortune of 300 million francs. Unbeknown to Michele, Fabi and Stan are now lovers. After going along with their scheme for a short while, Michele eventually confesses that she is Stan’s wife and had survived internment.

The three move into a house together but soon jealously and greed surfaces. Fabi hates that Stan is returned to his wife whilst he still yearns to get his hands on Michele’s money. The two lover’s scheme to kill Michele, but the unscrupulous Paul loves neither and decides to kill Fabi first then his wife to accomplish his goal. Watching over Michele throughout is her close friend Dr. Charles Bovard (Herbert Lom), but his continued words of warning fall on deaf ears.