Heinrich Hauser

Unusual race relations melodrama from West Germany follows a German sailor who meets and weds a Chinese woman while on leave in Hong Kong, only to meet with disapproval from his family and friends when the couple returns to Europe.

Heinrich Hauser, born 1901 in Prussia, filmed Chicago long before Hollywood discovered the authentic showplace. He went there at the height of the Great Depression, in 1931. It was only him and his camera. He manages without stars. He is not interested in the world of make-believe: no impressionist images, no experimental city poem, no travelogue or image film, no posed footage, certainly not one of the usual culture fi lms. The city was all that counted: the Naked City and the people living here. Hauser was obliged to Neue Sachlichkeit: New Objectivity – and to his aspirations and ambition as an artist.

In early 1930 author and journalist Heinrich Hauser embarked on a 110-day voyage from Hamburg to South America on the F. Laeisz shipping company’s four-masted sailship Pamir.

In a village near a deadly mountain ascent the people repeatedly have to help climbers in danger who didn't make it to the top, in fact nobody made it yet up there. Hansi Knoteck can't stand anymore the danger after a member of the rescue party dies and demands from Attila Hörbiger that he steps back from participating in his rescue efforts. Finally he relents but the villagers ostracize them. In the meantime Winnie Markus tries to seduce Richard Häußler who makes the life for his wife Viktoria von Ballasko a hell through his infidelities.