 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is a movie you can learn from. And this is about the movie, actually, TV serial called Jaguar, which is a Spanish TV serial. There are the players. It's a team of five. And there are Nazi hunters in Spain in 1962, looking for some designated Nazis who fled from Germany to Spain after the war. It's a very interesting serial for many, many reasons. George, welcome to the show, George. Why don't you give the environment of this series? What are we talking about here? She said in 1962 in Spain, and this is depicting a unit of former prisoners at the mouse. It was a concentration camp in Austria where the Spanish Republicans who were against Franco had been sent and were tortured and killed at that camp. So these are survivors who have come and they're seeking these former Nazis who have been sent, come to Spain, that are being protected by the Franco government and they're living normal lives. They're even open to who they are. They're not concealed in any way, and they want to take them to be in a court of law, an international court of law, to be brought to justice for what they did in the Third Right. And that's the justice, you've got about five, four men, three were formerly in the concentration camp, and one of them was the son of a person who was taken and murdered in the concentration camp. And lo and behold, there's this single-agent woman who she saw her father shot in Germany, in the camp. And she's out to kill Otto Bachmann. In the series, he's called Bachmann, but it's actually a takeoff on another German name, on a real character who really did do those things for the SS. Precisely. And she wants to kill him. He's plotting to kill, in some way, poison him or shoot him. And these other four realize that she's doing this and they don't want to kill this guy. They want to take him to court and bring him to justice, which is pretty smart, because if you kill him, that's the end of it. But if you bring him to court... There's one other element there. They want to use him as bait for the Butcher of Malthausen, which is where he worked. His name was Dr. Dest. And it was really his name. This is no change in the name of this character. And they figured that through Bachmann, they will get all of Dr. Dest. Exactly. So they're able to stop her from killing Bachmann. And then they grab her and they tell her, what are you up to? What are you up to? And she says, I want to... She actually saw Bachmann kill her father. And then we learn later that instead of killing her, she's just a little girl, they made her a servant in the Nazi camp or something, you know, the Nazi housing, you know, the mansion they were living in. So they get her, they convince her slowly to join them, rather than doing what she wanted to do, you know, just go kill, because I, you know, that sort of ends it. So they can bring them to... They want to bring this Dr. Dest to justice. So the whole six episodes pretty much goes from there. The first two episodes are really, really good. The last two after that took the first three, maybe, the fourth and the fifth, too much gunning, shooting, not really that much but just a lot of minutes of shooting. And then the sixth episode, really profound where she's actually in this lighthouse or something. And she's facing Dr. Heim. Dr. Dest, his name is Arobert Heim. And he's a real person. He really was Dr. Dest at about 1000 or Gussin, you know, which is the subcamp, the mouse housing. And, okay, so he's there. And we have her in that episode with him in this old lighthouse. And she's, he's actually, she's confronting him about what he did. And he's completely not remorseful at all. He says that he was helping science. And then he's trying to get her to go cook. So she does something crazy. So he can release himself. And he talks about her brother, 15 year old brother, that he actually skinned him alive. And the Spaniards held out the longest that her brother was the one who held out the longest being tortured and being skinned alive. And he never broke, right? So this is pretty much near the end. And then they show a good Sarah, who was the leader of this pack, being electrocuted. But he didn't die. I mean, some of the reviewers said he died. But no, at the last moment, they show him moving his hands. Now, the one last thing is more, I give it back to you, Jay. There was supposed to be a season two, but it was decided that too. And even though it was really like dislike in Spain, it was very well watched. Because the United States, people got tired of the episodes petered out until episode six. So there was no season two. So this is how it ends with Sarah, who was the leader of this little group, coming back to life after being electrocuted by Bach. So Ali, I'll turn it back to you, Jay. Maybe you could share some more things that I'm missing. Yeah, I think you got to go into it with a certain great assault. This is a pretty dramatic and violent series. And it didn't get good reviews by the Spanish reviewers. Every character is Spanish, except the Germans. The Germans, the names of the players who played the Germans are all German names. And indeed, they speak German. So the series is in Spanish, translated to English, and in German, translated to English. And I find that interesting. And it was hard to get a handle on why the reviewers in Spain didn't really like it that much. I think it's probably because, there's two things. One is because it was a copy of an American melodramatic, melodramatic series. They really have had enough of that. But the other was that I think, you know, the whole Nazi story in Spain is not known to the Spanish people. It's very interesting how history has hovered it over, like the Red Sea. And I don't think they want to hear about it. And likewise, they don't want to hear about the Holocaust, because it's a certain, you know, thread in the Spanish culture that still lives in the Inquisition in the 15th century. So they don't really care too much about the Nazis and about the prison camps, the death camps, and the Holocaust. But to me, this is really interesting because, and the write-ups all say that this is something the Spanish people do not know about, but should know about. Because there were tens of thousands of Spaniards who fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, and Franco won that. And he captured a lot of his adversary Republicans, they call them, and he didn't know what to do with them. So he made a deal with Hitler, who was his friend, to give these prisoners, these Republican Spaniards, to Hitler to be incarcerated, tortured, and killed in prison camps and death camps that Hitler had organized for the Holocaust. And most of them went to Mauthausen. And so there were, you know, repeated references to the fact that our team here, our Nazi-Under team, had connections with Mauthausen, where the Nazis were killing Spaniards. And they were Catholic Spaniards, they weren't Jewish or anything. I don't think they were Gypsies, they didn't fall in the normal patterns of the Holocaust. They were Franco-Republican, anti-Franco-Republican Spaniards. And it was unknown to the Spanish people, it was unknown to me, I didn't know that. And the movie, the series, shows you this group of people who were all associated one way or the other, personally, others and family, with what were going on in Mauthausen and came back to Nazis. Now that art, according to what I've read, that art isn't true. There were no Nazi-Hunters in Spain in 1962. But there were Nazis in Spain in 1962, which was what, 20 years after the war. And so what you get is a Dr. Drummer with only half the story. The Nazis were there, as you said, they were protected by Franco, and they were given many benefits. Some of them, like Bachmann, as I said, Bachmann, who was his name, Otto Bachmann, is his stage name here. Otto Bachmann made a lot of money to see Franco. Franco connected him to deals. And he made a lot of money there. He was a real person, but not his real name. And so it was a soft landing for the Germans, the Nazis, who had to find a place that was somewhat sympathetic to them. And Spain was sympathetic. Remember that Franco stayed in charge in sort of an autocratic leader of Spain until from 1939, when he won the Civil War. And he was very brutal in the Civil War against his own people against the Spaniards until 1975. That's a long time. From 39 to 75, he ruled. And he was certainly in charge in 1962, when he was giving the Nazis a good time in Madrid. So this is really sort of an imagined Nazi hunter team dealing with real Nazis. And for that reason, it is very provocative on a historical level. And for me, I was really interested to find out that this was going on and how brutal the Nazis were in Spain, a sympathetic country to them, and how much trouble it was to try to tie them down. The Doctor of Death, the Arab time, real person, that's his real name. It really was a real badass in that thousand, skating people and torturing them and injecting them with various, you know, noxious chemicals and fluids to see how long they would last. How much pain was it? Well, I kind of a doctor. It's this guy escaped. You know, however in the series ended, the fact is that he escaped. He went to North Africa. Somehow somebody got him out of there. We don't know. And people were supporting the Nazi ex-patriots. They were giving them money. As he wound up in Egypt, changed his name to an Egyptian name. He became a Muslim and disappeared into the woodwork. He may be alive today. And he is definitely a war criminal. So this is really a whole war crime story that was not followed. Nobody did anything about it because they had a soft landing in Spain because they could escape Spain and go elsewhere. And, you know, the American war criminal trials didn't reach them. So that's why the movie was very interesting to me. You know, the bottom line on that is that we knew that there were death camps all over Europe. Andre said, you know, the Nazis had a very organized large-scale extermination industrial level program all over every country that they occupied or which was friendly to Hitler had at death camps. And I'm afraid I don't think that Spain did. In the case of Spain, they sent their Republican adversaries to Austria instead. But so we knew that there were a lot of prison camps, death camps. What we didn't know was that this Holocaust and these camps affected lots of other countries, lots of other people. France was involved in in spiriting, you know, the fishy government was involved in spiriting these Spanish prisoners into Austria. So there was a kind of collaboration. They were collaborators in the French use of the term. And so, you know, you have to see Europe during the war as completely right with these camps and with collaborators who helped Hitler move people in and out of these camps and kill people. It was not as simple maybe as the media have told us. It was all over the place and every country somehow was involved. That's why the movie is so interesting. There are some of the scenes, you know, as I was reading each of the last episodes six, there's some really profound scenes. As I was saying, the interaction between Dr. Heim and Elizabeth. There is a lot of other side plots there. It seems that the young kid, Astro, while they were reading, he was leaving, you know, and exposing them potentially, you know, because they could have been under danger, you know, because they were obviously in Franco's vein and, you know, everybody's being watched, you know, with all these soldiers walking around. So there was that subplot. And then also, they show her as a little girl when she was a servant of these Nazis. So she remembered Bachman's scar and she remembered Dr. Heim's scar. But she wasn't really sure because Dr. Heim had grown a beard. If that was really him, this was, of course, 20 years later than the English, right? So then she gets to the point where she shaves, right? And she gets rid of that side of her face, you know, her hair. And then she knows it's him. But he's still denying, he's sending someone else, you know, French name, Legrand, or something else, Spanish name, you know, so he's in complete denial. And as you're sitting, then he got to Egypt, he'll be in real life, right? And she disappeared just like in South America. So many of the southern Nazis disappeared and missed the normal life span, you know, some of them being in luxury, you know, in Spain and South America, which is really sad if you think about it, that after they did such horrible things that they were able to get away. Yeah, it's not only that they could lead normal lives, they could lead normal Nazi lives. They said this restaurant was called Haus, which is a German word, meaning house. This restaurant was the venue for their regular meetings where they would celebrate Hitler, celebrate Nazism, sing Nazi songs to each other. They were out in the open in Spain. They weren't even hiding. And they were capable of doing very bad things to anybody they felt was adverse to them or trying to hunt them. And that was one of the threads in the series. Don't mess with these people because they have impunity. Furthermore, they have impunity to act like Nazis. And they have impunity to use the law enforcement of Franco to assist them. So it was really a bad time in the 60s. I didn't know that. I went to Spain for the first time in 1965. Only a short time after the date this movie, this series is set. I had no clue. And I think most people in Spain had no clue. They wanted to forget the Spanish Civil War. It was a bad time and people, especially Franco, were very brutal. And they didn't like Franco, but they never spoke against him because he was still running things and he was an autocrat. He shows you what happens in a modern-day country where an autocrat is running everything. You can't speak against him. And they don't say anything. We never talk about Franco. That sort of thing. And I was there in 1965. And that's what I saw. That's what they told me, the people I was with. So Spain is a special place. And this sort of takes the covering off it. And you can see it more clearly now through this serial. So I give credit then to come to find that there have been other movies made, George. I don't know if you noticed that, about the same subject, some documentaries about the same subject, about the Spanish Republicans who were taken away to the death camps and a good number of them were killed in death camps. And very resentful and all that. But hey, the Spaniards have been through a very brutal war, especially here at two before, 39. And so they were used, they were hardened by all of that. So it teaches you about Spain and the Spanish character and the Spanish history, which leads you right up to current times. Did you feel that some of the historical inaccuracy, basically that there was no real group like that that could never operate in Franco-Spanish, like the group that just depicting. And then that this doctor death, Dr. Heim, has actually escaped and gone to Egypt and disappeared. When you see the end of these six episodes that I watched, you really don't know that they did that. Because if you don't understand that this is fictitious, you would think that, oh, they'll get him. And they'll get him. But, you know, he was never brought just. Well, there's a lot of material that they didn't extend on and ended short. So many of these schedules are not renewed, right? The investors don't want to renew it. The producers don't want to do it again. But stop short. I can't tell you how many I've seen where it stops just nowhere. There was one not too long ago called Lady Ambassador. I don't know if you saw that where you go through this really interesting experience of an American ambassador in Britain. And it ends with an explosion. That's it. You never find out what happened. And I don't know if it's going to be renewed or not. It's kind of unfair. They suck you in for this, you know, multi-episodal series. And then they stop it short and they don't renew it. And that's what happened here. As I said, they didn't get great reviews. But they were playing on mostly this actress called Bianca Juarez, who played the role of Isabel Garrido. What an interesting character that was. She was tough as nails. She was beautiful. Beautiful woman, yes. But she had this persistent scar on her forehead where the Nazi struck her with his gun. And she was an incredible character and very athletic. I don't know if you noticed, but when she was running away from people down the dark streets of Madrid, she was really running fast. She's an athlete. The actress was an athlete. Come to find that she is one of the most popular stars in Spain. Spain, of course, has a, you know, a robust TV and movie industry which continues to operate despite the screen writers right going on in LA. So we'll see more. We'll see more of European and Spanish movies now and TV serials like this. But she had been in dozens of shows and not that old. dozens of shows. She must be very popular. She's very pretty and she's a good actress and all that. She was the star. The other Luciana, Luciana played by Ivan Marcos. I thought he was excellent playing the role he played. In fact, the whole Hunter team was very excellent. They played roles that you were fascinated to see what they did and how they interacted together. So I don't know about all of the episodes, because although I saw them all originally, I didn't look at all of them again. And maybe they weren't as good as the first few, but the first few really took your attention. I gotta follow this. I gotta see what she does and see how impervious she is and how she engages. And of course, there's a love thing between Bianca Suarez, that is, Isabel Guerrita, and Ivan Marcos, Luciana. But it's just ever so nuanced. It's just the slightest kind of reaction shot with the camera. And you really can't tell that there's any kind of affection there because they're Nazi hunters. They don't fool around. They're willing to give their lives at a moment's notice. So to the extent that he may touch her or throw a glance, it's not enough to make a conclusion that they got something going. So you never actually see that ripened into a relationship. If it was an American series, you had to see romance. There would be romance. But there was no romance here. It was a matter of doing the job, however brutal the job was. Different. And that's another reason I like these European movies and series, because although they copy the American style and this one successfully copied the American style, as far as I'm concerned, it's still different. The way it's produced and directed, the way the actors deal with each other, it's different. And so it gives you a kind of a view into their different culture, which it's like going on a trip, isn't it, George? You know, one of the things I was going to suggest is that if we can do one of the documentaries that's all the historical acts of what happened in Spain, it would sort of be a sequel to this, because as much as the acting was good and everything was good about the film in terms of presentation, we really should get our public here to understand the reality that this was a fantasy that they could not have operated because it was so tight. Yeah, you're right. The reason there was no Nazi hunter organization is that they wouldn't have been found out and killed. That's why, in fact, there was no Nazi hunter organization. It wasn't worth the risk. And that's what happened in Vichy France, all this, the resistance, all of them were actually found out and killed while the Nazi edition government was still out. So yeah, interesting. I think that's a good idea, George, because in my reading anyway, there were a number of, there's been a lot written about this. So I don't think the average Spaniard on the street of Madrid knows about it. Certainly the average American doesn't know about it. I didn't know about it. But there's been plenty written about it and there's been a bunch of documentaries made over it. I'm not sure you're going to find those documentaries on Netflix or Prime or any cable movie channel, but it's worth looking. And it's worth using this Jaguar series as a kind of keyhole into that whole area of European history and trying to find out war. It's another way of looking what the Germans did. Another way of looking at how the Germans ran. It doesn't make you feel good about them. And it doesn't make you feel good about Franco. But we need to know war. This is not what we've been brought up on. This is different. One last thing. The name Jaguar, Lucera, was explaining to Isabel that it was from South America. I think that there were two groups. The Jaguars was a lower level and they were the ones who would die for their tribe, for their nation. But there was a higher level. I got the name that Lucera was saying. They were never touched. So the Jaguars were the ones who put their lives on the line for their nation for the justice. And that's where the title Jaguar is. It's from Native South American Incas or those that move. Who's the other one? Inca and the other Native American tribes in South America. Lion. The lion, I think the lion and the Jaguar. So they were the Jaguars. And they're the ones who put their lives on the line. That's how the title changed. So George, folding all that together, the power of these episodes, the power of the characters, the writing was really good. And the production value is really good. But also considering that the Spanish regiors didn't sink too much for whatever their reasons. And considering that, you know, the story ended short and did not cover what happened to Dr. Dess in Egypt, I suppose. And it was not renewed for whatever their reasons. But also, you know, the whole appeal effect of looking at this series and realizing there's something more we need to know, something more we need to study about the Spanish Civil War, about Franco's relationship with Hitler, about Mao Towson, and about life in Madrid in 1962. You know, considering all of that, what rating would you give this series? You know, the first two episodes were rated by the public really high. You know, I don't know if it's the American public or the Spanish public. So I saw those ratings. Well, you can give a bifurcated rating to it. You could say that the first ones to be rated at distance and the latter ones is that. What do you think? Yeah, the first two, or maybe part of the third, I would give it, nine and a half minutes. The next two, four and five, I would give it maybe seven and a half or eight because I really wasn't happy. A lot of shooting, very little plot. I mean, minute after minute, they're shooting each other with the Nazis. You know, everybody gets a little old, you know. There's nothing to it. There's no substance to it. And then number six, I would give it a ten. Oh, wow. Because just the scenes between Isabel and Dr. Kahn, which is so profound, you know, and I really touched me, you know, when she was talking and then how he could blatantly lie, you know. Totally lie. He's got to save his own skin, right? So that, I would give that a ten. That last episode is really rude. And it's sort of a crescendo. That's why if they, if that's, if the fourth, four and five had been as good as six, maybe they would have had a second season. But the other thing is, because there was no second season, as you said, there were a lot of strings that are just left there, you know, didn't get anywhere. You know, there's a lot of things that were alluded to in this first few episodes, six seconds, that could have been carried into a second season, never got them. So you just leave them there hanging. Then one thought about that is that just as in the US, the people who put the different episodes together may not be the same. In other words, you could have episode one and two were written and directed by, by one team and then three or four by another team and five by somebody else and so forth. I know, I know that, that happens in US serials. It's disturbing because you have an uneven quality as you go down through there and so you're being heated in a way because, you know, you expect there to be some kind of continuing value from one to two to three to four, but, you know, you don't find that. And the deteriorates, I can't tell you how many serials I've stopped watching because I realized that they weren't maintaining a consistency with the, what grew me in in the first place. But if I take the whole thing and try to apply one rating to it, and mind you, it's really important to me about, you know, the keyhole, looking through the keyhole into history that you didn't know before, I would give everything a nine. I would balance it out at a nine. It's not exactly what you did, but I feel that the, any kind of serial that teaches you something, any kind of movie that teaches you something or to get credit for teaching you that. And this did teach me. So, yes, we will try to find those other documentaries about this period in time in Spain and throughout Europe and see if we can examine it more from a maybe a more documentary part of you. Thank you very much, George, for this discussion. I'm so glad we were able to look at this critically and in detail and against the background of true history and it's very valuable to us to have this experience. Thank you so much. Thank you, Joey. Very interesting, hoping live line to some things I really didn't understand. 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