
User Score
5 votes
This film is a fascinating showcase for Emil Janning's theatrical play. He's a gentle school teacher who believes in his boys and is easily fooled about all things, while the other town officials want him dismissed. Curiously it's very hard to see what the film is exactly aiming for. Disaster strikes and the lax prof proves to be too far removed of the real problems of the world, on the other hand his enemies are shown in the most unsympathetic, satirical way denouncing the militaristic, bourgeois ideology of the Kaiserreich.
Status
Released
Original Language
DE

This is the war and everybody in Germany should beware : the enemy is listening. One family in particular had better be even more careful than the average citizen of the Reich : the Kettwigs. Indeed they own an armament factory and their engineers, technicians, workers and of course themselves belong to a highly sensitive sector. They are under the constant scrutiny of those who want to get hold of the secret weapons devised in the plant, notably of a wire which, when attached to a balloon, may become the most effective anti-aircraft ever. For sure, they should distrust everybody. Isn't Nolte, the waiter, an enemy agent? Should young Bernd Kettwig allow himself to be seduced by this pretty woman ? As for Bernd's secretary, is she right when she lets this handsome man woo her?


Niemeyers Sohn
8mm film by Swiss artist Roman Signer.