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Behind only "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" as the highest-grossing foreign film ever released in the United States via RTT News , "Life is Beautiful" is built on a premise that doesn't seem like it should work at all: a feel-good family dramedy that takes place during the Holocaust. Yet writer-director-star Roberto Benigni manages just the right balance of presenting the horrors of Nazi concentration camps during World War II while also telling an uplifting story about the triumph of the human spirit.

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Benigni and his co-writer, Vincenzo Cerami, deliberately gloss over the full extent of the horrors of those camps in real life in service of telling a tale that would have been nigh-impossible otherwise. But as the movie is largely about a father hiding the truth of the situation from his son, it makes sense that we as the audience see a watered-down version of what went on in the camps — as it echoes the reality that has been constructed for the child.

Benigni became a worldwide star for a time after the success of "Life is Beautiful" and his subsequent Best Actor Oscar win for the film. He and much of the cast have continued to work steadily since its release, with the exception of a couple of actors who passed away a few years after. While much of the cast continued to work largely in European cinema, a few would use the international success of "Life is Beautiful" to break into Hollywood and appear in a few well-known and award-winning American films.

One of the only SS field officers to have any significant screen time in "Life is Beautiful" is the German lieutenant in the train station scene. He is played by German actor Richard Sammel, one of only a few cast members in "Life is Beautiful" for which the movie isn't his most well-known role. In fact, there are arguably two projects that he is better-known for — at least to English-speaking audiences — than his appearance in "Life is Beautiful.

Perhaps because of his commanding presence in "Life is Beautiful," Sammel was cast in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" over a decade later, once again playing a Nazi military officer.

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Still, for most American viewers, Sammel is likely most associated with being in the main cast of the FX series "The Strain" throughout its entire run from to His character was named Thomas Eichhorst, and Sammel was even nominated for a Saturn Award in for his performance on the show via Entertainment Weekly. It's also where we see him meet Dora Nicoletta Braschi , woo her, and eventually marry and have a child with her.

The two become separated when they are all taken to the camps, and remain so for much of the film — with Guido having to come up with clever ways to send messages to Dora to let her know that he and their child are still alive.