TOM CRUISE - CONTROVERSY OVER CRUISE MOVIE SPREADS IN GERMANY

CONTROVERSY OVER CRUISE MOVIE SPREADS IN GERMANY

Word that Scientologist Tom Cruise will portray the leader of the so-called Generals' Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler during World War II has touched off an ever-growing political firestorm in Germany, according to an Associated Press report from Berlin. Following a decision by the German military to bar the producers of the film, titled Valkyrie, after the code name used by the plotters, from using military bases as locales, a number of German lawmakers have gone on record to denounce the entire project. Social Democratic lawmaker Klaus Uwe Benneter said that having a Scientologist play Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, who is now regarded as a national hero, represents "a slap in the face to all upstanding democrats, all resistance fighters during the Third Reich, and all victims of the Scientology sect." But a Scientology spokeswoman in Berlin called the response a call to religious discrimination. And in an interview with the AP, Carl Woebcken, head of Babelsberg studio, which is co-producing the movie with United Artists, commented, "This is not a Scientology film, it is a Bryan Singer film, and Bryan Singer is Jewish ... and they want to make this film to show that during the Nazi regime there was heroic resistance. [Tom Cruise] is one of the best, if not the best, actors in the world for heroic roles and that is why Bryan Singer approached him."

28/06/2007