Review by boblipton

Based on a true story, this Oscar-nominated movie concerns itself with Heinz Ruhmann, an ex-con who wants to get back to work but finds himself frustrated with the German Empire's bureaucracy that makes him fall into the cracks. Finally, in an effort to get a passport, he finds an old uniform at a second-hand dealer's shop, buys it, wears it, and orders soldiers to follow him to a town, where he orders everyone about with obedience to military orders drilled into seemingly every German.

Helmut Käutner's version of the oft-told tale has its moments of satire, but really, it's more a character study of Heinz Ruhmann, his sad frustration at dealing with the insanity of a perfect system, that decrees that you can't get a job without a lodging permit, you can't get a lodging permit without a job, and you can't get a passport to get out without.... well, whatever it is, it can't be done. The movie is shot through with humanity, from Edith Hancke's sick lodger, to Willy Kleinau as Ruhmann's brother-in-law, who takes care of his family, and bears up under the lack of concern that the German government treats him with, with an almost pious belief in the order of things.

It's not that the system is a bad one. It's that no system works.