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Legendary Hungarian director Zoltan Fabri’s Two Half-Times in Hell (aka The Last Goal, original title: Két félidő a pokolban ) is a deliberately inaccurate retelling of the real life 1942 European football match (Dubbed the Death Match) between a German soldiers team and an Ukrainian War prisoners team made of former footballers of Kiev Lokomotyv and Dynamo who worked at factories under the occupation. For dramatic purpose, the players are Hungarian in Fabri’s movie.
The story takes place towards the end of World war II, in April 1944. To celebrate Hitler’s birthday, the Germans organize a soccer game against their war prisoners. The Hungarians agree to prepare for the match hoping to ease their detaining conditions. One of the players, Steiner, is a Jew and can’t play football but lies to make the team.
An oddity in Fabri’s filmography, Two Half-Times in Hell is done in a simple and straightforward fashion. He and co -writer Péter Bacsó (another great Hungarian director) dramatization is patiently built and efficient. It fully plays like the propaganda it actually is as the outcome supposedly wasn’t as harsh in reality depending on time, place and the regimes’ versions. It is quite interesting to see the manipulative effects of a system (and its film making talents) by such a great director compared to its western counterparts.
As usual Ferenc Szécsényi (Professor Hannibal)’s B&W cinematography is carefully crafted and Imre Sinkovits as Onodi, the player/trainer together with Dezsö Garas, as Steiner, if a bit purposely cliché, offer remarkable opposite performances.
Two Half-Times in Hell was remade two years later by Russian director Yevgeni Karelov as Tretiy taym and in 1981, as Victory, by John Huston with Sylvester Stallone (and Pélé!), featuring an International team with a highly different (happy) ending.
The film is also seen as an influence on Robert Aldrich-Burt Reynolds 1974 film The Longest Yard, the story of a prisoner VS warden match up of American football.
Two Half-Times in Hell is a wonderful sport (and wartime) drama.
Cinetalk.net 
The basic idea (Kiev versus german match) of the film has been revealed its a fake legend. 🙂
The Kiev legends were also revealed in 2009 by Ukrainian and German researchers (Marina Krugljak, Viktor Jakovenko and Markwart Herzog) that it is not true.
Although in the Kiev stadium before this day a statue commemorates the victory and defeat of August 1942, the legend was severed by Soviet propaganda.
The bread factory’s Start team had actually defeated the Germans in the city, but all in a general “mood improvement” cup series where Start had three winners in three months and not a victory against the Germans but the local Rukh 8: 0 was lost.
Rukh’s leadership, unable to endure humiliating defeat, had complained to the Gestapo at Start, saying that the agents of the Soviet secret service, NKVD, were playing in the team.
And indeed, four players, including goalkeeper Truszevics, found the NKVD card during the search, and they were detained in the detention camp for the reason that they attacked the commander’s dog….
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In this film the dramatization: football players are Hungarian “labor service” company members.
Members of Royal Hungarian Army… most of them Jewish.
The “LSCo” was a part of the occupation force in Ukraine.
(Labor Service Company: special military organization, members organized into military troops, but without a gun, was a war service carried out by work)
The company consisted of jews, intellectuals, craftsmen, political prisoners, ex-officers of Royal Hungarian Army origin of jewish….
It was a horrible era, Hungarians killed Hungarians (Jews) in the labor companies. A little Holocaust. Shame, but true.
The main character, called “Dio II.”the only football player, another team members just get out of service, they wanted to live, and escape from Ukraine to Hungary.
Dou you see another hungarian football films?
Puskás Hungary, or 6:3 and Brazilok?
🙂
https://indavideo.hu/video/Puskas_Hungary_-_teljes_film_1
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