Good twisty wartime spy story from Paul “subtlety is for cowards” Verhoeven. Not one of his best movies – too plotty and obvious – but clearly crucial to his whole deal (it wouldn’t be his last film about resistance fighters betraying their own people for profit).

Rutger and his college buds bond over his hazing experience by entering WWII (“a spot of war would be quite exciting”), ending up on different sides, then bumping into (and/or killing) each other. Guus (4th Man star Jeroen Krabbé) becomes a bigwig friend of the Queen, sleeping with her secretary Susan (of psychic horror Patrick), while Robbie becomes a Gestapo collaborator to save his skin. Guus and Rutger team up in England, running missions back into the Netherlands. Only Rutger and his friend Paul from Turks Fruit survive (no definite word on the cockatoo).

Pre-war college dickheads:

Post-war, a dickhead in an outhouse is about to eat this grenade:

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Feest! (1963)

Since I’m watching early Verhoeven movies, I dug up this short. Slick b/w little near-drama about a schoolboy who likes a girl. After days of glances and whispers, they hang out at the school dance, dancing occasionally but with nothing really to say to each other. Meanwhile up in the tower the older boys are playing a blindfolded couples kissing game, our couple plays along but she’s not into it, slaps him and runs off. The movie’s highlight: a boring assembly speaker is named Albert Vogler.