The Lost Man

So heavy and so depressing, as any post-World War II German film - with flashbacks - would be.

Peter Lorre, in real life addicted to morphine, came out of rehab and returned to Germany, where he directed and starred in a film, The Lost Man, in 1951.

Lorre is a scientist, Dr. Karl Rothe, who after the war was presumed dead and therefore was able to change his name to Neumeister. During the Nazi era, he learns from those over him that his discoveries are being sold to the enemy - by his fiancee.

In a rage, he strangles her. Now he works as a doctor in a refugee camp, but is reminded of his past in the presence of the man who was his assistant during the war, Hosch, who was involved in the investigation of The Night of the Long Knives.

The "Night Of The Long Knives" was a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate Hitler's power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' paramilitary organization, known colloquially as "Brownshirts."conspiracy.

That Neumeister has become completely unstable is demonstrated not only in his narration of the flashback, in which he tells Hosch that he intended to kill him, but in his problems with women. At one point, he murders a woman while on a train.

Lorre did a magnificent job in both his acting and direction. The end of the film is just as miserable as the rest of it. It's powerful, but don't have any sharp objects in the house.