When a simple farmer?s daughter is forced to choose the love of a German prisoner or her country?s patriotism she confronts her neighbors’ prejudices in an effort to heal a divided American town.
Bbass74Logliner
When a simple farmer?s daughter is forced to choose the love of a German prisoner or her country?s patriotism she confronts her neighbors’ prejudices in an effort to heal a divided American town.
Share
1: I don’t believe you need to use the word ‘simple’ because people don’t think sophisticated and farmer’s daughter. I would try a different adjective to describe her.
2: ‘Forced to choose’ should probably be changed. “When a spirited farm girl falls for a German prisoner,”
3: I am not seeing a goal for the lead character. In your logline she is ‘forced’, in other words she isn’t the one driving the action, things are happening too her. You should tell us what her goal is then the rest of the logline will fall into place.
4: You might want to be specific as to where this takes place. I don’t know what town was divided when it comes to the Nazi’s.; If we knew what town it was, we might understand why half the town is pro-Nazi and half the town is anti-Nazi.
Hope this helps, good luck with this!
Wow! ?Does this logline resonate.
I grew up in a rural area where 2 generations of German-American ancestors had to wrestle with the conflict between their ancestry and their loyalty to the United States. ?The issue for them ?(in World War II) was the paranoid?perception of being pro-Nazi just because their country of origin.
Unfortunately, there are hurdles to over in pitching the story beginning with the fact that most American don’t realize that over 400,000 German POW were shipped over to the U.S. ?for internment during World War II. ?That many of them found paying jobs on local farms and in small town businesses (which I presume to be the set up for how the ‘naive’ farmer’s daughter met the POW in the story.)
I would like some clarification on details.. Where and when is the story set? ?What is the ethnic makeup of the community? ?What is the objective goal of the lovers? ?To marry in spite of the war (was that legally possible?) or marry after the war? ?What about the ticking clock factor, the looming repatriation of the German once the war is over?
Finally, I think this story could be a candidate for dual protagonists because I think there is an equally compelling story to be told from the German POW’s pov.
Thanks for the feedback. To answer some questions:
Her ultimate goal is to be able to be with the German prisoner in which she has ?fallen in love. However, it cannot happen openly in the small southern Alabama town unless she is able to change the prejudices in some of the townspeople. When word gets out that she has a relationship with the Nazi POW the town becomes sharply divided and there is an outcry for this and the other events happening around town in which the POW soldiers have been able to participate and somewhat assimilate into the small town.
You are correct DPG, most people do not realize that there were Nazi POW camps in all lower 48 states except Vermont. Aliceville, Alabama had one of the largest and this is where the story takes place. The year of the story is 1944 so it is right after D-day. The small Alabama town is mostly white with about 20% African American residents. The objective goal for the two lovers are somewhat divided in the beginning. Here is where you could make a case for the dual protagonist option (which I have thought of and somewhat began writing into the script) because the farmer’s daughter wants to remain in the Alabama town to marry and live but the soldier doesn’t believe that to be possible. So their objective goal was to somehow keep it a secret until the war was over when, then, hopefully the POW’s would be free and they could marry.
When I looked at other loglines from period films they rarely stated the dates but used adjectives for their characters to emphasize the place and time. Should this story be an exception given the lack of knowledge about the setting?
It seems to me this a natural for a dual protagonist story: ?It’s in the mode of Romeo & Juliet, star-crossed lovers from feuding families, in this case two nations at war.
And I think it is necessary to establish the time period and place, otherwise readers won’t grasp or believe the premise. ?(Is this based on — ‘inspired by’ — real events, an actual WW2 romantic complication?)
One issue that can add depth to the story (not the logline) is that of racial segregation: ?the enemy — Nazi soldiers– were able to go into places with impunity (restaurants, bars, theaters) that Blacks didn’t dare.
I would drop the “lesson learned”, “heal the town” aspect from the logline. ?That’s not the hook. ?Nor is it the?objective goal of the lovers. ?That would be a by-product, a bonus. ?They just want to marry and build a life together. ?(Recall from Shakespeare, that healing the breach between the feuding families ?is the friar’s objective goal in consenting to marry Romeo and Juliet.)
And?speaking of Shakespeare, you could have the German POW kill one of her kin who gets winds of the budding affair and confronts him, forces a fight. ?(If you’re going to steal, steal from the best!)
Or news arrives that her brother serving in France, has been killed.
Whatever, ?I think the concept is a winner, has lots of potential. ?Good luck.
“you could have the German POW kill one of her kin who gets winds of the budding affair”
How did you get a hold of my script???
Haha, yes, there is an element of that but I didn’t even connect it with Shakespeare but you are very right!
It’s inspired by the real setting, The POW camp in Aliceville, Alabama and some of the events I am using that actually happened but the overall story is fictional. Like the movie Titanic, fictional love story set in a factual event.
How does this work:
When a warmhearted farm girl falls for a Nazi POW in 1940?s Alabama, the town?s prejudice is revealed in which she must confront in order to marry the man she loves.
I do not think ?the prejudice needs to be revealed. ?In the deep South in the 1940’s, it’s there from the FADE IN; it’s the warp and woof of the initial situation. ?It’s the dramatic obstacle the couple must overcome.
To really stir the pot on the prejudice issue, have you thought about making the farm girl Black? ?Yes, ?that it would ?complicate the story line. ?But I think it would also deepen it, exponentially, imho. ?And It would certainly make the characters and their relationship more interesting.
fwiw
She could be well-liked in the Black community. ?And be well-known and have a reputation in the White community as a girl who is a “credit to her race”. (Translation: ?She knows her place and doesn’t create any problems.)
As I suggested earlier, if your overall theme is prejudice, why hold back, why pull punches? ?And it makes for a stronger hook. ?It’s not just about An American woman falling in love with a Nazi POW in the deep South but a Black American ?woman.
And that mixed relationship would generate more conflict: the lovers will be universally censured and persecuted by their peers, ?Whereas if she’s a White woman, he won’t be universally censured and persecuted among his peers. ??But a blonde-haired Aryan, a member of the “master” race, falling in love with a Black woman?
Also consider that Hollyweird is under greater pressure than ever to diversify casting.
Check out this link: ?the true life love story of a Black Nurse and German POW interned in Arizona.
So it actually happened. ?Cupid is a trickster.
Also, though they were all lumped together as “Nazi’s” by their American captors and hosts, not all German soldiers were true believing Nazi’s and remained so until the the bitter end. Many were just regular “krauts” who had no choice but to go along with the party line and fight?as military service was compulsory. ? The male character could be in that second group.