Without Trumpet or Drum

Without Trumpet or Drum

1959 · 90 min · ★ 10.0 · Comedy, War

Summer 1870. Following the French defeat at Sedan. Léon, a soldier in a detachment isolated in the Ardennes forest, is sent in search of water. When he discovers the most peaceful of rivers, he decides to undress and bathe in it. At bend of the river he catches sight of another naked swimmer. It's a Prussian! Both men start bickering a bit: aren't they supposed to be arch enemies? But they soon fraternize. Unfortunately the patrol has not vanished in the haze and they hear it coming. Each man gets hold of his uniform and runs away in two opposite directions. The only trouble is that Fritz the Prussian has donned the French uniform and Leon the Prussian one!

Directed by Helmut Käutner · Written by Helmut Käutner

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Rent or Buy

Cast

Hardy Krüger Fritz Brösicke
Jean Richard Leon Riffard
Dany Carrel Marguerite
Françoise Rosay La grand-mère de Marguerite
Theo Lingen Colonel Tuplitz
Lucien Nat Captain
Helmut Käutner Königliche Hoheit
Fritz Tillmann Hauptmann Knöpfer
Ralf Wolter Uhlan Lehmann
Yves Barsacq Un Français
Willy Rösner
Hans Verner

Make it a double feature

3h 21m together

Without Trumpet or Drum

Nights on the Road

Both from Helmut Käutner.

More from Helmut KäutnerSee all →

Eichholz & Söhne

Eichholz & Söhne · 1977

Eichholz & Söhne

The Dream of Lieschen Müller

The Dream of Lieschen Müller · 1961

The Dream of Lieschen Müller

MovieMusicComedy

Lieschen Müller is in her mid-20s, works a dull office job and fancies the handsome waiter from the diner down the street, wishing for a more exciting life. In a vivid, lucid dream she happens upon a gigantic fortune, allowing her to live out her wildest fantasies. Quickly, however, she realizes that that's not what makes her happy.

Königskinder

Königskinder · 1950

Kitty and the World Conference

Kitty and the World Conference · 1939

Kitty and the World Conference

The setting is Lugano (Switzerland), where an apparently very important world conference takes place. The film tells the story of the young Kitty (Hannelore Schroth), who works as a manicurist at the Eden Hotel, and who in the course of events gets to know both a young journalist (Christian Gollong) and the English minister of economics (Fritz Odemar). A lot of wild mix-ups, comic situations, a love story and occasional singing ensue, and in the end most of the VIPs have gained their share of laughter… There’s also a great performance by Paul Hörbiger as the hotel porter. For a 1939 film made in Germany, “Kitty” is remarkably irreverent and satirical about politics.

The Commissioner

The Commissioner · 1969

The Commissioner

SeriesDramaCrime

Der Kommissar is a German television series about a group of detectives of the Munich homicide squad. All 97 episodes, which were shot in black-and-white and first broadcast between 1969 and 1976, were written by Herbert Reinecker and starred Erik Ode as Kommissar Herbert Keller. Keller's assistants were Walter Grabert, Robert Heines, and Harry Klein who, in 1974, was replaced by his younger brother Erwin Klein.

Ein Mann namens Harry Brent

Ein Mann namens Harry Brent · 1968

Ein Mann namens Harry Brent

A man shrouded in mystery. His name is Harry Brent. Not even his fiancée knows much about him. All she knows is that he runs a small travel agency. In a puzzling turn of events, he becomes involved in the murder of his fiancée's boss. The first thing that becomes clear to Detective Inspector James Wallace is that Harry Brent is obviously a key figure in the case...

Nights on the Road

Nights on the Road · 1952

Nights on the Road

An aging truck driver finds smuggled money and becomes involved with a hijacking crowd.

Under the Bridges

Under the Bridges · 1946

Under the Bridges

MovieRomanceDrama

Two barge skippers fall in love with the same woman.

Port of Freedom

Port of Freedom · 1944

Port of Freedom

MovieDramaRomance

Singing sailor Hannes, who now entertains the crowd at St. Pauli's Hippodrome after years at sea, promises his dying brother that he will take care of his ex-girlfriend Gisa. Taking Gisa to Hamburg to live with him, Hannes quickly falls in love with her, but soon has to face Gisa's affection for another man, Willem.

The Captain from Kopenick

The Captain from Kopenick · 1956

The Captain from Kopenick

MovieComedyDrama

A young shoemaker is arrested for stealing a small amount of money, and is jailed for fifteen years. Upon his release, he wants to get a permit to get a job and start anew, but finds that without a job he can't get a permit, and without a permit he can't get a job. Ensnared in the absurd net of Prussian bureaucracy, he can't see any way out. That is, until he enters a thrift shop and spots a Prussian officer's uniform that fits him like a second skin...

Black Gravel

Black Gravel · 1961

MovieDramaCrime

Tensions rise when a U.S. military base is built in a small village in post-war Germany.

Romance in a Minor Key

Romance in a Minor Key · 1943

Romance in a Minor Key

MovieDramaRomance

A grieving husband tries to uncover the truth behind his wife's suicide, leading him to discover a tragic tale of infidelity and redemption.

The Restless Years

The Restless Years · 1958

The Restless Years

A pretty, sheltered teenager falls for a boy from the wrong side of town.

Goodbye, Franziska

Goodbye, Franziska · 1941

Goodbye, Franziska

MovieDramaRomance

The relationship between Franziska and her partner Michael, a globetrotting photojournalist, remains strained due to their constant separation, until tragedy strikes, forcing Michael to come home and to make a decision about their future.

In Those Days

In Those Days · 1947

A car tells its story and the story of its seven owners during the years of the Third Reich.

Sky Without Stars

Sky Without Stars · 1955

Sky Without Stars

MovieDramaRomance

Anna is a factory worker in East Germany, but her five-year-old son Jochen lives with his grandparents in the West. Anna wants him to live with her, so she abducts him. Along the way she meets Carl, who helps her cross the border, and they fall in love.

More Like This

The Last Detail

The Last Detail · 1973

The Last Detail

MovieDramaComedy

Two Navy men are ordered to bring a young offender to prison, but decide to show him one last good time along the way.

Bat★21

Bat★21 · 1988

Lt. Col. Iceal "Ham" Hambleton is a weapons countermeasures expert and when his aircraft is shot over enemy territory the Air Force very much wants to get him back. Hambleton knows the area he's in is going to be carpet-bombed but a temporary shortage of helicopters causes a delay. Working with an Air Force reconnaissance pilot, Capt. Bartholomew Clark, he maps out an escape route.

Last Orders

Last Orders · 2001

MovieComedyDrama

Jack Dodd was a London butcher who enjoyed a pint with his mates for over 50 years. When he died, he died as he lived, with a smile on his face watching a horse race on which he had bet, with borrowed money. But before he died he had a final request, 'Last Orders', that his ashes be scattered in the sea at Margate. The movie follows his mates, Ray, Lenny and Vic and his foster son Vince as they journey to the sea with the ashes. Along the way, the threads of their lives, their loves and their disappointments are woven together in their memories of Jack and his wife Amy

Choke

MovieComedyDrama

A sex-addicted con-man pays for his mother's hospital bills by playing on the sympathies of those who rescue him from choking to death.

Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew · 2007

MovieFamilyAdventure

Intrepid teenage private eye Nancy Drew heads to Tinseltown with her father to investigate the unsolved murder of a movie star in this old-fashioned whodunit based on Carolyn Keene's popular series of books for young adults. But can the small-town girl cut through the Hollywood hype to solve the case?

Christmas with the Kranks

Christmas with the Kranks · 2004

Christmas with the Kranks

MovieComedyFamily

When their only daughter Blair leaves the family nest, Luther and Nora Krank decide to book an island cruise to beat the yuletide blues and just skip the holidays. But their decision to boycott tradition has the whole neighborhood in an uproar, and when Blair calls on Christmas Eve to announce a surprise visit with her new fiancée, the Kranks have just twelve hours to perform a miracle and pull themselves and their neighbors together to throw the best celebration ever!

How to Be Really Bad

How to Be Really Bad · 2018

How to Be Really Bad

The life of 14-year-old Lilith is similar to that of a normal teenager, but there is a peculiarity: she is the daughter of the devil and lives with him in hell. Because she is totally bored there and also wants to have fun and explore the world, she makes a pact with her father: she is allowed to go to earth for a week - but she has to convert a good person to evil there. If she succeeds in this challenge, she may stay on earth forever, otherwise she'll be waving a hell of a boring job in the bookkeeping of the underworld.

The Great Raid

The Great Raid · 2005

MovieActionHistory

As World War II rages, the elite Sixth Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war.

He Died with a Felafel in His Hand

He Died with a Felafel in His Hand · 2001

He Died with a Felafel in His Hand

A search for love, meaning and bathroom solitude. Danny goes through a series of shared housing experiences in a succession of cities on the east coast of Australia. Together these vignettes form a narrative that is surprisingly reflective.

Whisky Galore!

Whisky Galore! · 1949

MovieComedyCrime

Whisky Galore! is a 1949 British comedy film produced by Ealing Studios, starring Basil Radford, Bruce Seton, Joan Greenwood and Gordon Jackson. It was the directorial debut of Alexander Mackendrick; the screenplay was by Compton Mackenzie, an adaptation of his 1947 novel Whisky Galore, and Angus MacPhail. The story—based on a true event, the running aground of the SS Politician—concerns a shipwreck off a fictional Scottish island, the inhabitants of which have run out of whisky because of wartime rationing. The islanders find out the ship is carrying 50,000 cases of whisky, some of which they salvage, against the opposition of the local Customs and Excise men.

Gigi

MovieComedyRomance

A home, a motorcar, servants, the latest fashions: the most eligible and most finicky bachelor in Paris offers them all to Gigi. But she, who's gone from girlish gawkishness to cultured glamour before our eyes, yearns for that wonderful something money can't buy.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter