In post-war Germany, in a dreary small town near a US air force base, some of the local truckers hired by the Americans to supply the base with gravel and other construction supplies have a side job in the black market. Trucker Robert, underplayed to anti-hero perfection by Helmut Wildt, lives in a room above a brothel-bar in town and has an emotionless relationship with one of the B-girls (Anita Hofer) who has a yen for him. One day he spots an old flame(Ingmar Zeisberg), now married to an American officer running the base, and attempts to relight their fire in secret, a decision that leads to a tragic accident. It's all downhill after that.
It's downbeat, but one of the most compelling dramas about post-war Europe I've ever seen. It was cut to remove an anti-Semitic outburst by a bar drunk but restored in 2009. The tech credits and all of the performers, from the main actors to the extras, are excellent. It hasn't been shown on Noir Alley--it should-- but Eddie has programmed it at several festivals. Directed and co-written by Helmut Kautner, it was not the kind of commercial film the West German studios were producing in the late 1950s and 1960s.
It's downbeat, but one of the most compelling dramas about post-war Europe I've ever seen. It was cut to remove an anti-Semitic outburst by a bar drunk but restored in 2009. The tech credits and all of the performers, from the main actors to the extras, are excellent. It hasn't been shown on Noir Alley--it should-- but Eddie has programmed it at several festivals. Directed and co-written by Helmut Kautner, it was not the kind of commercial film the West German studios were producing in the late 1950s and 1960s.