Movielogr
The Berliner (1948)
Directed by Robert A. Stemmle
Overview
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.
Length 89 minutes
Actors
Gert Fröbe | Tatjana Sais | Ute Sielisch | Aribert Wäscher | O.E. Hasse | Hans Deppe | Werner Oehlschläger | Erik Ode | Karl Schönböck | Herbert Hübner | Alfred Schieske | Rita Paul | Brigitte Mira | Georgia Lind | Clemens Hasse | Herbert Weißbach | Kurt Weitkamp | Franz-Otto Krüger | Erwin Biegel | Marianne Prenzel | Otto Matthies | Walter Strasen | Georg August Koch | Franz Pollandt | Walter Schramm | Valy Arnheim | Walter Bechmann | Alfred Beierle | Reinhold Bernt | Albert Bessler | Walter Bluhm | Erich Dunskus | Joe Furtner | Kurt Getke | Herwart Grosse | Karl Hannemann | Helmut Heyne | Hugo Kalthoff | Alfred Maack | Edgar Pauly | Hans Schille | Otz Tollen | Ilse Trautschold | Theodor Vogeler | Erik von Loewis | Werner Völger | Georg Völkel | Alexander Welbat | Eduard Wenck