The Berliner

    The Berliner
    1948

    Synopsis

    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.

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    Cast

    • Gert FröbeOtto Normalverbraucher
    • Tatjana SaisIda Holle
    • O.E. HasseDer Reaktionär
    • Hans DeppeEmil Lemke
    • Karl SchönböckRundfunkreporter
    • Herbert HübnerHerr Bollmann
    • Erik OdeStimme
    • Rita PaulSängerin
    • Brigitte MiraDirne
    • Georgia LindDirne

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