"Unter den Brücken" is a German movie from 1946, the first year after World War II, which means it has its 70th anniversary this year already. The cast and crew of this 100-minute black-and-white film include a handful names that are still well-known today in Germany, such as director Helmut Käutner, also one of the writers, and the very young Hildegard Knef in a smaller role, a while before her big stardom. The rest of the cast may be known to people with an interest in German films from the first half of the 20th century mostly. But this is not a criticism. On the contrary, the really high rating here on IMDb made me pretty curious about the film and it wasn't easy at all to get a hand on it. But when I finally did and succeeded, I must say I was mostly disappointed. The film struggles with the same problems that many silent films had. The plot does not become entirely clear because of mediocre writing and there is a great deal of overacting in here too, which really was a problem back then and as we see here also transitioned in the era of sound movies. And in the face of the film being so shortly after the War, it feels surprisingly irrelevant in terms of political context and a depiction of the state of events back then. This could have been accepted if this film at least delivered on the romantic front as the plot summary here on IMDb suggests, but nope. The characters are not really likable and thus it's difficult to really care for them, let alone cheer for them. The overacting (especially by one male lead actor) does the rest and really hurts the film even more. It may have been the filmmaker's intention to make a bleak film here, but it's really difficult in my opinion to feel anything watching this one. This is why my overall verdict is almost exclusively negative. you really have to care a lot for this era in film to end up appreciating this one. I did not and so I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
Review of Under the Bridges
