Vorstadtvarieté

For this time-critical Viennese film, director Werner Hochbaum relocates Felix Salten's stage play DER GEMEINE (1899) to the eve of the First World War, creating unmistakable references to the prevailing Austro-fascism. Its backward-looking ideology is brought to the fore in a rarely seen sharpness. The Vienna Prater serves as a resonance chamber for this sophisticated piece of Austrian reality analysis. (Ernst Kieninger)