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 THE MURDERERS ARE AMONG US / DIE MÖRDER SIND UNTER UNS
1946, Wolfgang Staudte, Germany; 85m
with Hildegard Knef, Wilhelm Borchert, Arno Paulsen
In this very first postwar production (as well as the as first production of the DEFA studio) Wolfgang Staudte, the politically engaged scriptwriter and director, focused polemically on a former German Army captain who, in 1942, had ordered to shoot women and children in Poland. After the war he owns a successful business making cooking pots from steel helmets. A doctor who had witnessed the crime wants to take revenge and kill him. Set in Berlin on Christmas, 1945, Staudte's film creates a kind of fervid, expressionist portrait in black and white, conjuring up visions of a city and a world largely bombed to ruin and rubble. Staudte also freely indulged his penchant for using powerfully symbolic imagery, as in the last scene in which he juxtaposes the voice of the war criminal swearing his innocence with a long tracking shot of graves. Hildegard Knef, who would later have a brief Hollywood career as Hildegard Neff, makes her first screen appearance, playing another victim of the Nazi regime who becomes the doctor's roommate, lover, and eventually, conscience.
Fri April 12: 1; Sun April 14: 3 & 8:45
BLACK FOREST GIRL / SCHWARZWALDMÄDEL
1950, Hans Deppe, Germany, 100m
with Sonja Ziemann, Rudolf Prack
The first German color film, adapted from a 1917 operetta, BLACK FOREST GIRL's great success provided the foundations for the boom in the postwar "Heimatfilm." It offers a variety of attractions: a revue on ice, the romantic scenery of the Black Forest, a village feast celebrated in the old costumes of the region, and a love story between a student and a secretary who just returned to her ancestral village. To the production numbers and the romantic interludes, director Hans Deppe added elements of a comic subplot involving a piece of lost jewelry. The film starred two actors who soon after became darlings of the public: Sonja Ziemann, in her first leading role, and the Austrian Rudolf Prack.
Fri April 12: 2:45; Tue April 16: 3 & 7
 THE SINNER / DIE SÜNDERIN
1950, Willi Forst, Germany, 87m
With Gustav Fröhlich, Hildegard Knef
When released in 1950, THE SINNER inspired vigorous protests and caused a huge controversy for a film industry just getting back on its feet. Its tale of a young woman, who in the aftermath of WWII survives as a prostitute and later falls in love with a terminally ill painter, shocked conservatives and religious authorities for what they claimed was its glorification of prostitution and use of nudity. Willi Forst had been a popular actor and director of comedies since the 20s; his first postwar film shows his talent for melodrama as well. His narration is without any sensationalism, and it skillfully develops this story of a great, tragic, ill-fated love through the unfolding memories of the woman. Hildegard Knef, who had left Germany for Hollywood, returned to make THE SINNER and subsequently became one of German cinema's greatest actresses and biggest stars.
Fri April 12: 4:45; Sun April 14: 6:45
Mon April 15: 2:50
I OFTEN THINK OF PIROSCHKA / ICH DENKE OFT AN PIROSCHKA
1955, Kurt Hoffmann, Germany, 96m
with Liselotte Pulver, Gunnar Möller
In this German "Heimatfilm," not situated in Germany but in the Hungarian provinces, known as the Puszta, a German student spends his summer holidays with a Hungarian family and falls in love with Piroschka, a village girl and the daughter of the local railway stationmaster. By focusing on the cultural differences between the German student and his Hungarian hosts as well as the student's unfamiliarity with rural life, director Kurt Hoffmann creates a sparkling comedy. The Swiss-born actress Liselotte Pulver had worked in several films before, but PIROSCHKA was her breakthrough, and she became one of the most beloved stars of the German popular cinema of the 50s.
Fri April 12: 6:45; Wed April 24: 1 & 7
 SKY WITHOUT STARS / HIMMEL OHNE STERNE
1955, Helmut Käutner, Germany, 70m
with Eva Kotthaus, Erik Schumann, Horst Buchholz
One of the most distinguished scriptwriters and directors of the era, Helmut Käutner had begun his career with apolitical comedies and romances in the early 40s. After WWII, he focused increasingly on political subjects, even daring to take on such an important but controversial theme as the division of Germany into East and West. In SKY WITHOUT STARS he created a love story between a border guard from West Germany and an East German factory worker - a couple who can only meet in the ruins of a train station in the no man's land between East and West (the Wall had not yet been put up). As the film heads towards its tragic conclusion, Käutner makes a stirring moral plea against the unnatural division stretching across the country, without getting involved in the cold war polemics usually dominating such discussions. Although the film had little commercial success, SKY WITHOUT STARS was enthusiastically received by critics and was honored with several national and international awards.
Fri April 12: 9; Wed April 24: 3 & 9
FILM WITHOUT A TITLE / FILM OHNE TITEL
1947, Rudolf Jugert, Germany, 90m
with Hans Söhnker, Hildegard Knef, Irene von Meyendorff, Willy Fritsch
A director, a scriptwriter and an actor discuss the making of a movie in Germany immediately after WWII. By chance they come up with a couple, whose story is being narrated in flashbacks and from different perspectives. Helmut Käutner (script) and Rudolf Jugert (direction) cunningly broke all the rules, offering a variety of genres in their film - from melodrama to war film, from comedy to pseudo-documentary. One of the first postwar productions, and at the time enthusiastically received, the film features a very young Hildegard Knef in her second screen appearance.
Sat April 13: 2; Mon April 15: 1 & 9:30
 WHEN CONNY AND PETER.../WENN DIE CONNY MIT DEM PETER
1958, Fritz Umgelter, Germany, 106m
with Cornelia Froboess, Peter Kraus
During fascism, Germany had been hermetically shielded from any cultural influence from abroad. After the war, the country had a lot of catching up to do. American music became a central part of German youth culture of the period and served as a means to mark off their world from that of their parents. This is the background of Fritz Umgelter's movie about a jazz band run by young students who (at the end successfully) try to get "their music" through, even against the opposition of their old-fashioned and ossified schoolteachers. Simultaneously, Umgelter managed to turn Cornelia Froboess and Peter Kraus into "rock idols."
Sat April 13: 3:50; Sun April 28: 5:30
Tue April 30: 1
THE DEVIL STRIKES AT NIGHT/NACHTS, WENN DER TEUFEL KAM
1957, Robert Siodmak, Germany, 105m
with Claus Holm, Mario Adorf, Hannes Messemer
Like Fritz Lang's great classic M, Robert Siodmak's THE DEVIL STRIKES AT NIGHT is the story of a serial killer; indeed, Mario Adorf's character even resembles Lang's sexual offender, played by Peter Lorre. The greatest difference, however, is that Siodmak's film takes place during the Third Reich, and thus every aspect of the case is filtered through the political reality and interests of that regime. An honest police officer solves the case and arrests the murderer who, beginning in 1933, had killed over eighty women. Yet in 1944 it was inconceivable to admit that a mass murderer had eluded detection or capture for over a decade. By order of Hitler himself, news of the case was completely suppressed, and the police officer was sent to the front.
Sat April 13: 6; Sun April 28: 3:15
 THE BRIDGE/DIE BRÜCKE
1959, Bernhard Wicki, Germany; 103m
with Fritz Wepper, Michael Hinz, Volker Lechtenbrink, Folker Bohnet
Bernhard Wicki's first feature film is considered by many critics to be the most important film of the period and was one of the first postwar productions with a truly worldwide release (Oscar nomination and Golden Globe in 1959). Without compromise, it shows the cruelty and absurdity of war with the unfolding story of seven schoolboys - teenagers, barely more than children - in a small city, who in April 1945 are recruited to the army. Without any training, they are assigned to defend a small bridge against approaching Americans. While in Nazi cinema death often had been glorified as noble sacrifice for the country, Wicki - whose film evoked comparisons to the merciless realism of directors such as G.W. Pabst - leads his young protagonists from carefree adolescence into the full horror and delusion of war; their sacrifice is that much more touching since their missions turn out to be so absurd. Wicki, himself a leading actor, managed to elicit powerfully convincing performances from a group of then unknown young actors.
Sat April 13: 8:15; Sat May 4: 2 & 6:15
IN THOSE DAYS/IN JENEN TAGEN
1947, Helmut Käutner, 194, Germany, 111m
with Erich Schellow, Gert Schäfer, Winnie Markus, Werner Hinz, Karl John
An early postwar production, realized under the miserable conditions of a destroyed country, without studios, even without electricity for lighting, IN THOSE DAYS is remembered as a powerful and honest attempt to understand and to work through all that had happened in Germany under Hitler. Director Helmut Käutner, who also co-scripted the film, had the brilliant idea to reflect on the past twelve years of history by telling the story of a car and its seven owners - from its first registration in 1933 until 1947, when two mechanics cannibalize it for parts. Among the seven owners we find a composer whose music is considered as "decadent"; a Jewish couple contemplating suicide; a soldier heading off to the front lines; and another soldier trying to escape from the army. In this kaleidoscope of Germany, Helmut Käutner creates a series of revealing characters and manages to capture the atmosphere of the various periods.
Sun April 14: 1 & 4:45; Mon April 15: 4:45
 THE LOST MAN/DER VERLORENE
1951, Peter Lorre, Germany, 99m
with Karl John, Peter Lorre, Renate Mannhardt
Peter Lorre's first and only film as director was undertaken as an attempt to return from the U.S. (where he had worked since the mid-30s) to the country of his origin. Lorre adapted his own novel about a doctor whose feelings of guilt about his actions during the Third Reich only intensify as he tries to adapt to postwar Germany. Clearly, Lorre's direction was heavily influenced by his work in the prewar expressionist cinema, especially Fritz Lang's M. Characters are always captured in half-light or shadows, and one can physically sense his growing, murderous rage against his assistant.
Tue April 16: 1, 5 & 9
FANFARES OF LOVE/FANFAREN DER LIEBE
1951, Kurt Hoffmann, Germany, 91m
with Dieter Borsche, Georg Thomalla, Grethe Weiser
In the 50s the trade papers announced that American director Billy Wilder had purchased the rights to re-make a German comedy called FANFARES OF LOVE; Wilder transformed his acquisition into Some Like It Hot, perhaps his most beloved film. In fact the German original itself had been a remake of a 1935 French film, but director Kurt Hoffmann took special care to capture the seamier side of German show biz. Two jobless young musicians dress up as women to join a lady's band - yet another wrinkle to their already complicated love lives. The film chronicles the postwar revival of interest in swing and pop music, aided by a score laden with American-style big band numbers (composed by Franz Grothe) and typical German pop songs of the era performed by Inge Egger. Billy Wilder would later claim that all he took from Hoffmann's film was the basic story line and one scene, but many viewers will note more than a passing resemblance between the films.
Wed April 17: 1, 5 & 9
THE AFFAIRS OF DR. HOLL/DR. HOLL
Rolf Hansen, 1951, Germany; 101m
with Dieter Borsche, Carl Wery, Maria Schell, Heidemarie Hatheyer
A young doctor struggles to invent a serum that will save the life of an industrialist's daughter suffering from a terminal illness. With a script by Thea von Harbou, who after her close collaboration with Fritz Lang in the 20s became a major figure in the Nazi cinema, the film unabashedly combines elements of dime novels with strains of great melodrama, opting repeatedly for miracles and divine providence over the power of logic and reason. Beautifully shot in rich black and white with an almost expressionist sense of lighting, DR. HOLL was one of the first films in postwar Germany to establish the doctor figure as a kind of "demigod in white," a recurring theme in German popular cinema and television found even today. In her second screen role, Maria Schell already powerfully incarnates the doomed, romantic persona with which she would be identified throughout her career.
Wed April 17: 3 & 7
 ROSES BLOOM ON THE GRAVE IN THE MEADOW/ROSEN BLÜHEN AUF DEM HEIDEGRAB
Hans H. König, 1952, Germany, 90m
with Ruth Niehaus, Konrad Mayerhoff, Hilde Körber;
A real discovery. Hans König's film disproves the idea that the "Heimatfilm" genre portrays friendly people in colorful landscapes. In this film the landscapes are unfriendly and dark, photographed in impressive angles and overshadowed by the foreboding of a catastrophe. This catastrophe happens indeed when a farmer rapes a young and innocent girl. Seeing no way out, the girl decides to die in the moor; she will be saved at the very last moment, but the ending is not without its ambiguities, coming to represent the victory of the naïve and pure girl over the power of the devil, as embodied in the ogre-like farmer.
Thurs April 18: 1; Sun April 21: 6:30
Wed April 24: 5
TOXI
1952, Robert A. Stemmle, West Germany, 88m
with Toxi, Paul Bildt, Johanna Hofer
One evening, a well-to-do Hamburg family finds a five-year old girl abandoned at the door of its villa. Her name is Toxi, and she's black, the daughter of a German woman (who died) and an American GI (who returned to the U.S.). Director Robert A. Stemmle effectively details the prejudices existing in Germany against mixed marriages, as well as against the children produced by these partnerships. In a series of extremely well scripted scenes, various German positions on race and racism are discussed with remarkable honesty and candor. Just as young Toxi has worked her way into the hearts of this German family, a resolution of sorts appears: her American father returns, hoping to take Toxi back with him.
Thurs April 18: 2:50
Sun April 21: 4:30 & 8:30
 SISSI
1955, Ernst Marischka, Germany/Austria, 102m
with Romy Schneider, Karlheinz Böhm
Perhaps the quintessential "Heimatfilm," showing the genre at its best. A Bavarian princess, Elizabeth (known as "Sissi") meets, falls in love with, and eventually marries the Austrian emperor Franz Josef - the kind of perfect idyll that allowed audiences to forget the strains of reconstructing a country destroyed in WWII. The landscape of the Alps (where the two meet) is indispensable for the romantic aspects of the story; the sets and costumes at the Vienna court are extravagant, and the marriage - the film's highpoint - leads into a marvelous operetta. A big part of the film's success was due to the luminous beauty of its 17-year-old star, Romy Schneider. SISSI and its two sequels, made in 1956 and 1957, were huge international hits, and made Schneider the darling of the film going public.
Tue April 23: 1, 5:10 & 9:15
BONJOUR KATHRIN
1955, Karl Anton, Germany, 96m
with Caterina Valente, Silvio Francesco, Peter Alexander
Caterina Valente was the queen of German show biz of the decade. Her pop songs and dance shows were extremely popular, and consequently made their way into the movies; she often teamed up with her brother Silvio Francesco. Like so many Hollywood musicals, her films were frequently backstage stories set in the world of entertainers and entertainment. BONJOUR KATHRIN begins in Paris, with the fruitless attempt by three young music students to mount a stage show, then continues with an unexpected triumph at the San Remo Festival of Popular Song, and finally ends up back in Paris where an auction is transformed into an amusing, rousing musical. Director Karl Anton's visual compositions have impossibly rich colors and the gaudy, artificial look so admired in the 50s. The highly imaginative song and dance sequences effectively evoke the dream world of the period.
Tue April 23: 3:10 & 7:20
 THE HOOLIGANS/DIE HALBSTARKEN
1956, Georg Tressler, Germany, 97m
with Horst Buchholz, Karin Baal, Christian Doermer
In this German Rebel Without a Cause the protagonists are 16 or 18, come from well-situated middle-class families, but don't get along with their authoritarian fathers who had started their careers in Nazi Germany. To protest against them, the sons knock around in the streets, smoke, pick up girls, and form small gangs. Director Georg Tressler and script writer Will Tremper succeed in capturing the sights and especially the sounds of their world, to give as authentic a portrait of juvenile delinquency as possible. Far more than in similar American films from the period, there's a much looser sexuality in the film that also gave it a level of notoriety. It's easy to see why its two young leads, Horst Buchholz and Karin Baal, soon became major German stars.
Thurs April 25: 1 & 5:15; Sat April 27: 4
THE TRAPP FAMILY IN AMERICA/DIE TRAPPFAMILIE IN AMERIKA
1958, Wolfgang Liebeneiner, Germany, 106m
with Ruth Leuwerik, Hans Holt, Josef Meinrad
The story recounted in both the stage and screen versions of The Sound of Music had earlier been presented in two German films that were never released in the US. THE TRAPP FAMILY (1956) was one of the biggest box-office hits of postwar cinema in West Germany and Austria. Based on the memoirs of an Austrian baroness, the film told the story of a novice who marries a baron and with his seven children sets up a folk music singing choir. In 1938, after Hitler's invasion of Austria, they are forced to emigrate. That much of the story most of us know. THE TRAPP FAMILY IN AMERICA (1958) continues their tale, showing their initial travails in their new homeland and their day-to-day problems surviving in a miserable New York slum until they finally manage to have a steady income and eventually a new home. See an impoverished and bashful Austrian baroness trying to understand the American meaning of sex appeal! A famous German children's choir, the Regensburger Domspatzen, dubbed the musical numbers.
Thurs April 25: 3; Sat April 27: 8:30
Sun April 28: 1
 THE HEART OF ST. PAULI/DAS HERZ VON ST. PAULI
1957, Eugen York, Germany, 95m
With Hans Albers, Gert Fröbe
Hans Albers, known as "the blond Hans," was one of the most popular actors of the German 30s and 40s - adventurous, reckless, a lady killer loved by women and adored by men. In the 50s, he wasn't young anymore, but was still popular, even famous. Eugen York's film is a sort of homage to Albers, putting him at the center of a criminal story set in St. Pauli, Hamburg's red-light district. Albers plays an old captain entertaining the guests at his sailors' pub with his songs. Trouble appears in the guise of Gert Fröbe, the German film villain par excellence (see Fritz Lang's THE 1000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE or Goldfinger). Especially for older members of the audience, the film evoked memories of Great Freedom No. 7 (1944), one of Hans Albers's biggest hits.
Fri April 26: 1, 5 & 9
THE SPESSART INN/DAS WIRTSHAUS IM SPESSART
1957, Kurt Hoffmann, Germany, 99m
with Carlos Thompson, Liselotte Pulver, Rudolf Vogel
Adapting a fairy tale by Wilhelm Hauff (1802-1827), director Kurt Hoffmann introduced us to the Spessart, a forest region in the west of Germany, imagining it as a fantastic and magical fairyland where friendly robbers haunt a lovely countess and her entourage. Liselotte Pulver plays the countess who dresses up as robber, joins the gang in its camp and eventually falls in love with its chief bandit. There are some wonderfully comic musical numbers, with songs composed by Franz Grothe and by Günter Neumann. THE SPESSART INN was one of the era's most successful films, and as such inspired two sequels in 1960 and 1967, both directed by Kurt Hoffmann and starring Liselotte Pulver.
Fri April 26: 3 & 7
 WIDOWER WITH FIVE DAUGHTERS/WITWER MIT FÜNF TÖCHTERN
1957, Erich Engels, Germany, 96m
with Heinz Erhardt
Heinz Erhardt was a popular comedian of the 50s and 60s who subsequently found his niche in television; more a cabaret comic than a real actor, many of his gags were based on his amazing and often baffling plays on words. Appearing in almost 50 films in his career, Erhardt most often embodied the simple, honest ordinary citizen who unavoidably comes up against the minor but everyday injustices most citizens simply accepted as part of daily life in postwar Germany. Using a combination of charm, wit and "passive aggression," Erhardt usually winds up getting what he wants. Here, Erhardt is cast in a quick-paced comedy about a widower who needs to find a new wife and mother for his five daughters.
Sat April 27: 2; Sun April 28: 7:45
SHARKS AND SMALL FISH/HAIE UND KLEINE FISCHE
1957, Frank Wisbar, Germany; 119m
with Hansjörg Felmy, Sabine Bethmann, Wolfgang Preiss
A war movie about four young naval cadets who in 1940 begin their military service, first on a minesweeper, then on a submarine; only one of them will survive. Using all the then available special effects technology, Frank Wisbar tried to create as realistic a sense of shipboard life and naval battles as possible. Like other contemporary filmmakers, he hoped that by showing war in all its horror, as a "shark" devouring everyone and everything in its patch, he could deliver a powerful anti-war message. By placing the battle sequences against the backdrop of a young cadet who grows increasingly disillusioned with the war and with life, many critics felt he negated the political dimensions of the war, yet Wisbar seemed to capture in his film something of the attitude of many Germans towards their wartime experience. The leads were all young, unknown actors, and one of them, Hansjörg Felmy, enjoyed a successful career into the early 90s.
Sat April 27: 6; Wed May 1: 3 & 7:20
 THE 1000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE/DIE TAUSEND AUGEN DES DR. MABUSE
1960, Fritz Lang, Germany,105m
with Dawn Addams, Peter van Eyck, Wolfgang Preiss, Gert Fröbe, Werner Peters
Fritz Lang, who had left Germany in 1933, returned in the mid-50s and accepted the offer by producer Artur Brauner to do a remake of The Indian Tomb (made in 1921 by Joe May from a Lang and Thea von Harbou script), which was then followed by another Indian adventure, The Tiger of Eschnapur. Brauner then suggested Lang return to one of his greatest creations - the criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse - and place him in a contemporary story. Hesitant at first, Lang later accepted when he became intrigued with what Mabuse could do with all the technological developments since the 30s. Once again the story concerns the efforts of the elusive Mabuse to gain control of the entire world, opposed only by the desperate efforts of a handful of policemen. Weapons of mass destruction, notably the atomic bomb, figure prominently; there's also a fascinating, and terribly prophetic, vision of the new capabilities of surveillance, with batteries of hidden cameras lodged in the walls of a hotel for diplomats. The cast featured some of Germany's biggest stars, such as Gert Fröbe and Peter van Eyck, but the reviewers were cool to the film and audiences stayed away. Fritz Lang returned to Hollywood, and never directed another film.
Fri May 3: 1, 5:15 & 9:15
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