The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975)
"Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum" (original title)

A young woman's life is scrutinized by police and tabloid press after she spends the night with a suspected terrorist.

Directors:

Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta

Writers:

Heinrich Böll (novel), Volker Schlöndorff,

Stars:

Angela Winkler, Mario Adorf, Dieter Laser

3 wins.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Angela Winkler	...	Katharina Blum
Mario Adorf	...	Kommissar Beizmenne
Dieter Laser	...	Werner Tötges
Jürgen Prochnow	...	Ludwig Götten
Heinz Bennent	...	Dr. Hubert Blorna
Hannelore Hoger	...	Trude Blorna
Rolf Becker	...	Staatsanwalt Hach
Harald Kuhlmann	...	Moeding
Herbert Fux	...	Weninger
Regine Lutz	...	Else Woltersheim
Werner Eichhorn	...	Konrad Beiters
Karl Heinz Vosgerau	...	Alois Sträubleder
Angelika Hillebrecht	...	Frau Pletzer
Horatius Häberle	...	Staatsanwalt Dr. Korten (as Horatius Haeberle)
Henry van Lyck	...	'Scheich' Karl

Storyline

Katharina Blum is a young handsome German maid. She meets Ludwig, and they fall in love at once. They spend the night together. In the morning, the police bursts in her flat, looking for Ludwig : he is a terrorist. But he was no longer here. Katharina is arrested, humiliated, suspected to be a terrorist herself, dragged in the mud by the newspapers... A plea for democracy and individual rights.

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Plot Keywords:

terrorist | police | democracy | press | 1970s | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

West Germany

Language:

German

Release Date:

10 October 1975 (West Germany)

Also Known As:

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

Filming Locations:

Cologne, North Rhine - Westphalia, Germany

Box Office

Gross:

SEK 1,513,433 (Sweden)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bioskop Film, Paramount-Orion Filmproduktion, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

The crew is visible in the reflection of the glass of a telephone booth

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Crazy Credits

The legal disclaimer reads as follows: 'Personen und Handlung sind frei erfunden. Sollten sich bei der Schilderung gewisser journalistischer Praktiken Aehnlichkeiten mit den Praktiken der BILD-Zeitung ergeben haben, so sind diese Aehnlichkeiten weder beabsichtigt noch zufaellig, sondern unvermeidlich.' (Characters and plot are purely fictitious. Similarities with journalistic practices of the newspaper "BILD" are neither intended nor coincidental, but inevitable.) This is a direct quote from the introduction to the original novel by Heinrich Böll.

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Connections

Referenced in Romy (2009)

User Reviews

Strong contemporary portrait of political and media abuse

Apart from its general and still (i.e. now more than ever) valid attacks on the scrupelous tactics of tabloid journalism, this movie is also very valuable as a time piece about German society in the 1970's, when the country was shaken by fear of terrorist assassinations and everything considered anti-Democratic (meaning left-wing). In this way, the film not only takes into question the missing morality of tabloid journalists, but also the loss of human rights in a society bothered with questions of homeland security (parallels to the current situation in the U.S. are obvious). Katharina Blum is not only destroyed by the merciless press abusing her for sensationalist journalism, but also by a police and judicial system that doesn't value an individual's right of privacy anymore, and even less the principle of innocent until proven otherwise.

A film of exceptional quality (even though the acting isn't convincing at some times), "Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum" is strongly recommended to every thinking movie fan with an interest in the abuse of power in our not-so-democratic society.