Am Brunnen vor dem Tore

Any film that starts with Hammond organ music during the credits does not promise much, and in this Heimatfilm poor Sonja Ziemann has to put up with no less than three suitors, one more nondescript than the other; ah well, all three give very firm handshakes. This Heimatfilm has the most interesting love story I have ever seen, as one of the suitors (Paul Klinger, man's best handyman) falls in love with her when she offers him to run her petrol-station (no pun intended), thàt is passion à la Heimat. Another suitor is a former English pilot (reference to WW2) , whose visiting parents (the father played by Willy Fritsch, who has lost nothing of his charm) speak remarkably fluent German: in the Heimat everybody soon forgets his own roots.

Besides all the terrible cliches of the genre and the utter seriousness of it all, this one has less than mediocre direction and is edited with a plough-share. Among all this horror it is Hans Richter who makes the best of it as one of the "Landstreicher" and who saves the viewer from drowning himself in the Brunnen vor dem Tore.