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The Traitor

1936 · 92 min

A stern, deliberate propaganda thriller that plays like a moral warning, more stiff and instructive than genuinely suspenseful.

Directed by
Karl Ritter
Genres
Drama
Starring
Willy Birgel, Paul Dahlke, Heinz Welzel
Overview
This 1936 film tells the story of the doings of foreign agents in Germany and their allies among the German population. Having placed an ad in a local paper looking for "contact with bigwigs in German industry", enemy agents Morris and Geyer end up making contact with an engineer named Brockau. Brockau has developed an improvement in turning oil into gasoline and that's just what these enemy agents are looking for. Brockau, for his part, needs money, because his girlfriend is a selfish cow who demands more and more toys and trinkets, which has put our naive little nerd deep into debt. Brockau, however, is not the only unwitting maroon to fall into the clutches of the evil agents: the former bank agent Hans Klemm, now doing his service in the Wehrmacht, ends up being contacted by an agent from the other side and ends up getting blackmailed into working for them.

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In the UKNo streaming, rental or purchase options known.
Directed by
Karl Ritter
Genres
Drama
Starring
Willy Birgel, Paul Dahlke, Heinz Welzel
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How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone
    Pacing
    measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
    Attention
    engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
    Themes
    • betrayal
    • corruption
    • loyalty
    • deception
    • guilt
    Places
    • big city
    • workplace
    Era
    period
    Audience
    adult
    Form
    • procedural
    Content intensity
    • Gore mild
    • Language none
    • Violence mild
    • Sex mild
    All scales, 0 to 10
    Scales, 0 to 10
    ScaleValue0 to 10
    Action5
    Horror2
    Humour2
    Realism8
    Romance2
    Tension6
    Darkness6
    Complexity5
    Emotional weight5

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    Where to watch in the UK

    No UK streaming, rental or purchase options are known.

    Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

    Details

    Genres
    drama
    Directed by
    Karl Ritter
    Written by
    Leonard Furst
    Starring
    Willy Birgel, Paul Dahlke, Heinz Welzel, Irene von Meyendorff, Rudolf Fernau, Lída Baarová, Hans Zesch-Ballot, Volker von Collande
    Runtime
    92 min
    Country
    Germany
    Languages
    German

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