In our Monthly Film Series, we will show a variety of GERMAN or GERMAN language films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. On the 2nd Wednesday of each month, audiences will now have a chance to see these films on a regular basis at the CLINTON STREET THEATER. (Children movies will be playing on Sunday afternoons – please check our website.) All films are with English subtitles.

The Endless Night – Fog Over Tempelhof – (Die Endlose Nacht – Nebel über Tempelhof)

WEDNESDAY, November 10, 2021 – 7:00 PM

Germany – 1962/63  – 85 minutes

DIRECTOR: Will Tremper

CAST:  Karin Hübner, Harald Leipnitz, Louise Martini, Paul Esser, Wolfgang Spier, Werner Peters, Hannelore Elsner, Fritz Rémond jun., Walter Buschhoff, Korinna Rahls, Alexandra Stewart, Bruce Low, Lore Hartling, Narziss Sokatscheff, Gerda Blisse

Berlin Tempelhof Airport: Several flights have been cancelled, and people wait in the fog for planes that don’t arrive. Individual fates come to light behind the usual everyday stories. There’s deception and adultery, lost illusions and ruined careers. Within just a few hours, people are thrown off the seemingly ordered paths of their lives. When the next day arrives, their lives have changed forever.

 

Berlin Tempelhof Airport in the early sixties. A thick fog lies over the city and several flights have been cancelled. Travellers are stuck in the waiting hall overnight, at the mercy of themselves and their fellow travellers. Burnt-out starlet Sylvia (Hannelore Elsner) tries to find a bed for the night, while a Polish jazz combo (score written by Peter Thomas) has a jam session to banish the fog. Farmer John McLeod (Bruce Low) is not sad about having to spend the night at the airport, as he has fallen in love with the check-in desk lady Juanita (Alexandra Stewart). Ageing actor Stoltmann (Fritz Rémond) fears he won’t be able to play King Lear in Hanover – the leading role he’s been waiting for all his life. Businessmen are damned to inactivity, and dramatic relationship crises erupt. The camera loses track of people, only to find them again elsewhere. Viewers are left to guess what has happened in the meantime. The result: observations of everyday life, portrayed with a finesse and subtlety that hasn’t been seen for a long time.

Without a predetermined script and using improvised lines, the visionary Will Tremper made a film in 1962/63 that fascinates with its authenticity and the presence of great German actors such as Werner Peters, Harald Leipnitz and Hannelore Elsner, as well as cameos by Mario Adorf and Wolfgang Neuss. The film still has enthusiastic fans among film buffs.

Die endlose Nacht is a thriller, melodrama and comedy in one – timeless and more contemporary now than ever before – and one of the most important films of the New German Cinema of the 1960s.

Quotes about the film:

“This film is a gift. I want people to watch this film. It’s so wonderful. If anyone ever wishes to pay tribute to me, then let them do so with this film.” Hannelore Elsner (2012)

“When the so-called Young German Cinema was still sleeping, Will Tremper woke up in the most beautiful airport in the world. What used to be a Cold War drama is now a comedy that makes us Germans look pretty daft.” Volker Schlöndorff (2012, director)

“An extraordinarily charismatic director made an extraordinarily impressive film with an extraordinarily fascinating actress. I’m grateful that I had the good fortune to meet Will Tremper.” Tom Zickler (2012, film producer)

“Die endlose Nacht proves that Will Tremper has a unique talent for journalism, directing and screenplay writing. We no longer have talent like that. What a pity.” Wolfgang Rademann (2012, film producer)

“Will Tremper was the oddest no-nonsense bloke I’ve ever met. He always surprised us! And this film still surprises today. I’m proud that I can thank him through the re-release of Die endlose Nacht at our cinema filmkunst66.” Regina Ziegler (2012, film producer)

“Without Will Tremper’s Die endlose Nacht, German post-war film would have taken a major misstep. Besides Godard’s Breathless, Die endlose Nacht is one of the two films that inspired me to get into filmmaking.” Klaus Lemke (2012, director)

“An appraisal of the Germans. Each character has a surprise up his or her sleeve. Perfect and subtly humorous scenes cause amazement in the cool and glassy setting of the airport”. Enno Patalas (in Filmkritik, 1963)