The Berliner

The Berliner 1948

7.40

Long before he played the corpulent Goldfinger, German actor Gert Froebe was a scarecrow-skinny comedian. In Berliner Ballade, Froebe makes his screen debut as Otto, a feckless Everyman who tries to adjust to the postwar travails of his defeated nation. Stymied by black-market profiteers and government bureaucrats, Otto begins fantasizing about a happier life at the end of that ever-elusive rainbow. Director R. A. Stemmle doesn't have to strive for pathos: he merely places his gangly star amidst the ruins of a bombed-out Berlin, and the point is made for him. Filmed in 1948, Berliner Ballade was later released in the U.S. as The Berliner.

1948

The Ancient Law

The Ancient Law 1923

6.30

Baruch Mayer, son of an orthodox rabbi from a poor shtetl in Galizia, decides to break with the family tradition and leave the shtetl to become an actor.

1923

City of Violence

City of Violence 1951

1

Amore e sangue (released in the U.S. as "City of Violence"), the 1951 Marino Girolami (billed as "John Wolff") West German/Italian romantic action adventure war thriller.

1951

12:15 AM, Room 9

12:15 AM, Room 9 1950

5.00

The young hotel manager Leutner runs for study purposes a transmitter in the hotel room of his fiancée Maria. Coincidentally he learns that a gang of counterfeiters want to get rid of a troublesome witness at 12:15 AM. Will Leutner be able to prevent this… and can he trust his fiancée at all? Cheats, swindlers, forgers and murderers are hiding under the mask of honest and reputable hotel guests.

1950

Martina

Martina 1949

5.50

A wayward young woman running from her past is reunited with her sister after they became separated during the war. While she worked on the streets, the sister established a professional career as a psychologist.

1949