History Film / AForeignAffair

* AllGermansAreNazis: Zigzagged. Only one character is an actual Nazi, and the film is sympathetic to what the Germans have gone through in the war, but it's also mentioned that part of the American military's job is to deprogram the Germans, especially the children, after years of Nazi indoctrination. One scene features a boy who is in trouble for compulsively drawing swastikas on everything, and whose father, a man with a Hitler mustache, constantly threatens him with DisproportionateRetribution.

Congresswoman Phoebe Frost (Arthur), alongside an American committee, is sent to check the morale of American soldiers in occupied Germany. To her dismay, men are fraternizing with the local women, they trade in the black market, and go to dumpy dives for entertainment. Even more disconcerting is the fact that a former ex-Nazi lover, Erika von Schlütow (Dietrich), is now a nightclub singer who entertains these soldiers.

-->'''Herr Mayer''': Yes, Herr Kapitän! ''[clicks heels]]''

--->'''Herr Mayer''': I will break his arm!... No food, Bürschchen! I will lock him into a dark room.
--->'''Captain John Pringle''': [[SarcasmMode Why not just shove him in a gas chamber?]]
--->'''Herr Mayer''': Yes, Herr Kapitän.
--->'''Captain John Pringle''': Listen, we've done away with concentration camps. Take him round to a GYA, one of our German youth clubs. Some baseball and a little less heel-clicking is what he needs.

* {{Adorkable}}: Phoebe when she sings the Iowa state song.

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Averted with the Germans, as they do actually speak German, but played straight when Phoebe decides to go with the two bicycle officers. She calls herself Gretchen Gesundheit, and there's many "yas" involved.

* TheVamp: Erika was the mistress to a Nazi, but has enamored John Pringle to the point where he puts her on a whitelist without really checking up on her.

* BatmanGambit: All this time, Colonel Plummer knew John was going out with Erika. [[spoiler:They used this to their advantage, because they know that Erika's former Nazi lover would come out of hiding to kill them both. John would conveniently continue the relationship, therefore, making the capture of the war criminal easier. They eventually have to pressure John to keep up appearances when he doesn't want to be with Erika anymore.]]

--> '''Phoebe Frost''': Oh, John. I'm so happy: I'm in heaven. Not that I wasn't happy before... I was just drifting. That's it, drifting. Drifting on a grey sea all alone. It's not bad, but suddenly you get scared, you need another voice. So you hoist up your heart, and wait. And nobody passes by, just grey waves. Your heart gets frayed and some, lashed by the night winds and rain, so you haul it down, what's left of it, and you resign yourself. Then, suddenly out of nowhere, comes a boat, so unexpected; all white sails on the horizon. To you, my beautiful boat.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: One for John: He shows one of his fellow officers a silk stocking he managed to get in the black market which shows that he doesn't care for the rules, and that he has a lady friend.

* NoPartyGiven: Averted, as Phoebe mentions being a Republican.
* NoSwastikas: Averted. There's even a little boy who won't stop drawing swastikas wherever he goes.

-->The Officers: Fraulein! Fraulein!

---> '''Phoebe Frost''': Oh, John. I'm so happy: I'm in heaven. Not that I wasn't happy before... I was just drifting. That's it, drifting. Drifting on a grey sea all alone. It's not bad, but suddenly you get scared, you need another voice. So you hoist up your heart, and wait. And nobody passes by, just grey waves. Your heart gets frayed and some, lashed by the night winds and rain, so you haul it down, what's left of it, and you resign yourself. Then, suddenly out of nowhere, comes a boat, so unexpected; all white sails on the horizon. To you, my beautiful boat.

-->''Col. Rufus J. Plummer'': Morale! Maybe someday we can send a little committee of our own investigating morale in Washington D.C.

--->'''Erika von Schlütow''': We've all [the German survivors] become animals with exactly one instinct left. Self-preservation. Now take me, Miss Frost. Bombed out a dozen times, everything caved in and pulled out from under me. My country, my possessions, my beliefs... yet somehow I kept going. Months and months in air raid shelters, crammed in with five thousand other people. I kept going. What do you think it was like to be a woman in this town when the Russians first swept in? I kept going.
* TakeThat: Col. Plummer's to Frost's checking up on the soldier's morale in Germany:
--->''Col. Rufus J. Plummer'': Morale! Maybe someday we can send a little committee of our own investigating morale in Washington D.C.