Der Verlorene

Der Verlorene is an extraordinary film noir not only as text but also in its context. This film disappeared after only ten days from german screens although most critics said that it´s the best german film after WW II. The reasons are very simple: First, it was too late. This film five years earlier in 1946 would have been the Trümmerfilm par excellance. Compare it to Die Mörder sind unter uns and you will see the huge difference. Second, in the upcoming era of Wirtschaftswunder no one in whole Western Germany wanted a reminder on what their industry and morality was build on: the Third Reich. Consider this, when Marlene Dietrich came back to Germany many people shouted: Go home! In the 1950s one producer said about Fritz Kortner: Hitler could have burnt more Jews. This way of thinking wasn´t elimated and still it´s not. Nowadays WW II is good for action flics (Saving Private Ryan and all this crap) or love stories (for example this desaster Enemy at the Gates). It´s depressing but one shouldn´t get mad over it. Just see Der Verlorene and you will see there were people how to handle this topic in an adequate manner. Maybe there are some filmmakers out there who still know. Let´s hope for it.

After years of dreary labor in Hollywood as a professional "evil foreigner," Lorre went home to Germany to write, direct and star in this dark, dreamlike narrative in which he plays the ultimate Peter Lorre character: a Nazi mad doctor sex murderer. The film is an ironic commentary by Lorre, the reluctant impersonator of psychopaths, on the nature of true psychopathology as embodied in the amoral Nazi regime. It's also an ingenious melding of the sort of B-film noir that Lorre had specialized in for years as an actor (Maltese Falcon, Stranger on the Third Floor, Quicksand) and the impressionistic Nouvelle Roman/Nouvelle Vague influenced art film just picking up steam on the continent (shades of Orpheus, Wild Strawberries, and Last Year at Marienbad can be seen in its shadowy enfolding of past/present and dream/reality.) Though somewhat uncertain in balancing himself between his roles as principal actor and director (the motivations of some of the other characters are somewhat murky, for instance, and it's rather a shock to see Peter Lorre so continually being the object of women's lustful attentions) this was clearly a man with the makings of an ingenious and original filmmaker. It's a shame this film isn't better known, and that Lorre never got the chance to make another.

This unique German noir is a weird film, to say the least. A doctor at a vaccination clinic makes an interruption in his work, when another doctor comes there to assist him, who is a dark shadow out of his past. During the war he was a researcher achieving great findings and results, and that suddenly appearing man was his assistant, stealing his research results and selling them to the enemy, using his betrothed for a bait, so he stole both his work and his fiancée. Peter Lorre is the doctor who can't forgive his betrothed for her treason, so he strangles her in the most sensitive scene of the film (without showing the strangulation - it is only reported afterwards,) and from that moment on he is a lost man. All this is shown in flashbacks, as Lorre has a long talk with his old colleague while drinking and smoking, sorting things out, to reach a settlement. The film and the story is complicated, the flashbacks are confusing, the story involves both Nazi plots, bombings of Hamburg, another improvised murder, proving the liability of the psychopath Peter Lorre has grown into, and everything is draped in very dark shadows and abysmal moods, the character of the film is apocalyptic, and shadows play an important part in the cinematography. It is fascinating and weird, deeply disturbing and melancholy at the same time, poignantly pinpointing the mood of post war Germany among the ruins of both Hamburg and people, in a world where no one can feel at home or safe or any security any more.

DER VERLORENE is one of these films that at first seemed to me very confusing and brought me the sensation "i am not following...".I rated it 8 out of 10 mainly because of the wonderful film-noir atmosphere,the black and white photograph,the very well filmed scenes on the streets of "old" Hamburg and ,above all,the extraordinary last minutes.

Then,time passed and months later ,i still have that strange feeling in my mind ,i have been dreaming with that loneness and absurd madness of the main character-the doctor played by Peter Lorre.So i decided to include DER VERLORENE amongst my personal list of best films ever and change my vote to 10 out of 10.

Sometimes a good work of art takes its necessary time to mature as a good wine!.In my humble opinion that is the case of this film.

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.