German movies made during the Nazi reign have been largely regarded as anti-Semitic fables, Aryan propaganda, and fantasies like the 1943 Münchhausen. But Helmut Käutner puts the lie to that simplistic perception: despite rising to eminence during the Reich, he never followed a Fascist line but made humanist and ambiguous dramas, and after the war he emerged as a cinematic force. Arguably his greatest film, Romanze in Moll (1943) is a gorgeous and eloquent adaptation of a Guy de Maupassant story involving a soulless marriage, a romantic betrayal, a descent into compromised virtue, and a suicide. Käutner’s mise-en-scène is Ophuls-prime and his sense of ironic tragedy stiletto-sharp. As the fated heroine, Marianne Hoppe is a Sphinx of pre-feminist crisis; she doesn’t act so much as reflect our worst fears. This is a little-seen masterpiece undeserving of the Nazi label.
