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.
Germany Germany
Similiar movies
The Wall
Like the best USIA films, The Wall distills political events into an emotionally clear and compelling ideological "story". In 1962 Walter de Hoog gathered footage from U.S. and German newsreel sources and crafted this taut short film about the first year of the Berlin Wall. Straightforward, keenly balanced narration portrays Berliners as "accepting the wall but never resigned to it". The extraordinary footage of the first escapes was propaganda enough-- His challenge was to make the politics human.
Rabbit à la Berlin
The untold story about wild rabbits which lived between the Berlin Walls. For 28 years Death Zone was their safest home. Full of grass, no predators, guards protecting them from human disturbance. They were closed but happy. When their population grew up to thousands, guards started to remove them. But rabbits survived and stayed there. Unfortunately one day the wall fell down. Rabbits had to abandon comfortable system. They moved to West Berlin and have been living there in a few colonies since then. They are still learning how to live in the free world, same as we - the citizens of Eastern Europe.
Judgment in Berlin
American judge in Germany must decide if the hijacking of an East German plane into West Berlin was justified.
A Dandy in Aspic
Double-agent Alexander Eberlin is assigned by the British to hunt out a Russian spy, known to them as Krasnevin. Only Eberlin knows that Krasnevin is none other than himself! Accompanying him on his mission is a ruthless partner, who gradually discovers his secret as Eberlin tries to maneuver himself out of a desperate situation.
Germany, Year Zero
In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.
The Man Between
A British woman on a visit to post-war Berlin is caught up in an espionage ring smuggling secrets into and out of the Eastern Bloc.
Ten Seconds to Hell
Two rivals from a German bomb squad are left to deactivate duds in postwar Berlin.
The Tunnel
Inspired by true events, Olympic swimmer Harry Melchior defects from East Germany in the 1960s and hatches a daring plot to help his sister and others flee East Berlin through a 145-yard underground tunnel.
Man on a String
U.S. spies catch a Moscow-born U.S. citizen helping spies, and they force him to counterspy.
The Murderers Are Among Us
After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds an ex-soldier living in her apartment. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.
The Search
In postwar Germany, a displaced Czech boy, separated from his family during wartime, is befriended by an American GI while the boy's mother desperately searches for him.
Escape from East Berlin
East Berlin, shortly after the construction of the Berlin Wall. Kurt Schröder and his family dig a tunnel to escape to West Berlin as they struggle to overcome the obstacles blocking their underground path to freedom.
Dear Fatherland Be at Peace
1964 in Berlin, not long after the raise of the wall that separated the city: ex-prisoner Bruno is chosen by the eastern secret agency to be sent west with a special order. However as soon as he's crossed the border, he reports to the police. He claims his order was to kidnap someone, but he doesn't know who yet. He's forced to continue feignedly. However the east agents don't really trust him and play a double game...
Similiar TV Shows
Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes is an American television sitcom that ran for 168 episodes from September 17, 1965, to July 4, 1971, on the CBS network. The show was set in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II. Bob Crane starred as Colonel Robert E. Hogan, coordinating an international crew of Allied prisoners running a Special Operations group from the camp. Werner Klemperer played Colonel Wilhelm Klink, the commandant of the camp, and John Banner was the inept sergeant-of-the-guard, Hans Schultz. The series was popular during its six-season run. In 2013, creators Bernard Fein through his estate and Albert S. Ruddy acquired the sequel and other separate rights to Hogan's Heroes from Mark Cuban through arbitration and a movie based on the show has been planned.
Yes Minister
Satirical sitcom set in the office of a UK Cabinet minister, Jim Hacker MP, who struggles with Civil Service bureaucracy and political machinations as he tries to get on with government business.
The Company
The Company tells the thrilling story of Cold War CIA agents imprisoned in double lives, fighting an amoral, elusive, formidable enemy – and each other – in an internecine battle within the Company itself.
Weissensee
Weissensee is a German television series. The series is set in East Berlin in 1980 and 1987 and follows two families.
Generation War
Five young German friends promise to meet again after WW2 ends, but soon their naive wishes of peace and happiness will become a long and tragic nightmare.
Die Luftbrücke
A German woman and an American general embark on a turbulent romance amid the Berlin Blockade in 1948.
The Same Sky
Cold War, the seventies. Lars is a Romeo agent from East Germany: he must go to the West side and seduce and spy on Western women who work in government or defense institutions.
Ku'damm 56 – Rebel With a Cause
At the Berlin dance school "Galant," worlds collide and the struggle between prudishness and emancipation is carried out. The proprietor of the dance school, Caterina Schöllack, has three daughters whom she orders to integrate into this hierarchically structured society. Two of her daughters seem to abide by their mother's wish. Only Monika, the middle daughter, rejects the given path and discovers rock 'n' roll for herself.
Shadowplay
In 1946 Berlin, an American cop searches for his missing brother while helping a novice German policewoman fight the violent crimes engulfing the city.
Ku'damm 63
The single mother Caterina Schöllack takes over the management of the Galant dance school on Kurfürstendamm ("Ku'damm") in Berlin after the end of the Second World War. The father of their three daughters did not return to the family after the war, he is officially missing.
Our Miracle Years
In a politically, morally and economically destroyed country, three sisters of an industrialist family in post-war Germany reinvent themselves and set the course for their future.
The Turncoat
Summer 1944. Walter Proska is about to return to the Eastern Front when his train is blown up by partisans. Together with a scattered bunch of German soldiers, cut off from the front, he awaits certain death while the commands of his superior Willi Stehauf are becoming more and more senseless and inhuman.
Ku'damm 59
The further life of the protagonist Caterina Schöllack and her three daughters will be traced, who fight in the restrictive period of the 1950s for emancipation and the realization of their own dreams. Monika, Helga and Eva have grown up and each seeks their way to find their way in the rigid society of the late 1950s. Monika and Freddy have a career in show business, and mother Caterina acts as a manager. Meanwhile, Helga works hard to be the perfect housewife and mother for Monika's daughter Dorli. Eva, however, quarrels with her life as a professor's wife.
One, Two, Three
C.R. MacNamara will do anything to get a promotion within the Coca-Cola company, including looking after boss W.P. Hazeltine's rebellious teenage daughter, Scarlett. When Scarlett visits Berlin, where C.R. is stationed, she reveals that she is married to a communist named Otto Piffl -- and C.R. recognizes that Otto's anti-establishment stance will clash with his boss's own political views, possibly jeopardizing his promotion.