Josef Gmeinder

This first film adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play about class distinctions was made in 1955 in the Vienna Rosenhügel studios, but it was only premiered five years later. Curt Bois plays the rich capitalist Puntila who only becomes somewhat agreeable when he is drunk (which he is most of the time in this film). In his inebriated state, Puntila not only gets amorously involved with three different ladies but also suggests that his daughter Eva marries his chauffeur Matti. The chauffeur, however, doesn’t really agree…

Karl Bockerer is a Viennese original. He survives the ‘great times’ – to his own dismay his birthday is on the same day as the one of the “Führer” – by pretending to be more stupid than he really is, and uncovers, over and over again, the hypocrisy and the uptightness of the epic nonsense in his milieu by means of real and phony naivety. Where Schweijk made a mockery of the ruling system by being a presumptive follower, the Viennese butcher strives against the tide. And he is not alone, has family and friends. His personal braveness protects him neither from the rebellion in his own house, nor from the horrors of total war…

Shortly before the end of the war: Disillusioned Austrian soldiers crammed into a barracks in a prison camp welcome a new arrival who has nothing better to do than rave to the men, who have been separated from their homeland for years, about his Viennese lover. When the womanizer mentions the name of his latest love affair, Manhardt, her husband, jumps at him in outrage; the adulterer falls and dies. Acquitted of murder and returned to Vienna, Manhardt cannot get over his Anni's infidelity. Friends and a second fateful coincidence help.