Intrigue, unavoidable in the air and on the streets of post-WWII Vienna, even more so on the screen post-THIRD MAN/’49. As in this local low-budgeter, a faux Hitchcockian thriller that ought to be better known. Francis Lederer (the only lead in both German & English-language versions) is a concert pianist whose controlling personality spins out-of-control when wife Cornell Borchers tells him she’s leaving for good on New Year's Eve. Sneaking out between rehearsal & performance of the Schumann piano concerto (what an alibi!), Lederer finds & shoots the man Borchers plans to meet as he sits in the back of a taxi that’s stuck in traffic. The discovered body an unexpected gift for hardluck cabbie Gustav Fröhlich* who dumps the corpse and grabs passport, clothes & cash for a shot at a new life & new identity in a new country. But when the fleeing wife shows up to meet the dead man, the gig is up . . . or is it just starting? Neatly plotted, with gobs of local color, panic, quick thinking and show-me-your-papers suspense (plus a lickety-split finale in the Schumann), director Emile E. Reinert (who died right after this at 50) keeps all the balls in the air while adding budding romance between close calls. Pretty sweet stuff in spite of some missing pieces.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Yes, the same Gustav Fröhlich who starred for Fritz Lang in METROPOLIS/’27.
DOUBLE-BILL: Who but Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger would think to use Vienna’s post-war four-power division as backdrop to classic Viennese Operetta, adapting DIE FLEDERMAUS as OH . . . ROSALINDA!/’55, with CinemaScope to squeeze all four governments into the picture frame. The film is better contemplated than seen, but there’s NOTHING quite like it.
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