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"In Love & War", Without the Peril
By Josh Friedman, Los Angeles Times

November 17, 2001 - - World War II Italy between a captured British soldier and a young peasant woman who risked her neck to save his.
This noble and sun-washed tale has the pristine production values viewers have come to expect from the Hallmark films, but it also depicts love and war with barely a whiff of tension. If you've wondered what "Casablanca" might have been like without the Humphrey Bogart character to get in Victor and Ilsa's way, here it is ( 9p.m. Sunday, CBS).
Callum Blue stars as Eric Newby, a member of England's elite Special Boat Section who is caught by the enemy and sent to a prison camp outside Parma. When Italy quits the war in September 1943, Newby is freed but quickly hobbled by a fluke injury, so courageous villagers and farmers must help him evade Germany's 16th Panzer Division, which is on the prowl.
Among the locals is Barbora Bobulova as Wanda Skof, the daughter of a Slovenian anti-Fascist, who teaches Newby Italian, smuggles him food and lifts his spirits during his cat-and-mouse game with the Nazis. In the process he becomes her devoted "Enrico."
For those seeking a pleasant, if predictable escape, "In Love and War" has plenty to offer. Director John Kent Harrison and scriptwriter John Mortimer, adapting Newby's autobiography, create a warm, detailed portrait of Italy. You can almost taste the tomatoes drying in the sun.
The problem is a central story with little sense of menace or romantic heat. The lovebirds' lives—and their relationship—never seem in peril. Strange how a movie called "In Love and War" could be so light on dramatic conflict.
"In Love and War," the 210th presentation of the Hallmark Hall of Fame, recounts the true romance that bloomed in "In Love and War," with Barbora Bobulova and Callum Blue, Sunday on CBS.
Calendar Live - 'In Love and War,' Without the Peril
www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-TV-X!ArticleDetail-46697,00.html

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