Directed by:
Frank WisbarScreenplay:
Frank WisbarComposer:
Hans-Martin MajewskiCast:
Sonja Ziemann, Gunnar Möller, Erik Schumann, Brigitte Horney, Dietmar Schönherr, Carl Lange, Horst Frank, Wolfgang Preiss, Günther Ungeheuer (more)Plots(1)
On the night of January 30th 1945, the Soviet submarine S-13 sunk the Wilhelm Gustloff, a former KdF (= Kraft durch Freude) cruise ship turned refugee transporter in the last stage of WWII. S-13's Master and Commander, Alexandr Marinesko, can't be blamed for ordering the attack, for by the laws of naval warfare, he had done absolutely nothing wrong: The Wilhelm Gustloff had the markings of a navy vessel, been fitted with anti-aircraft guns, and was convoyed by a torpedo boat, the Löwe – nothing in the scene's appearance suggested that this was a rescue undertaking. More than 9300 people, mainly civilians, died that night in the Baltic Sea; so far, it is considered the biggest maritime disaster ever. The Wilhelm Gustloff-victims were among the very few war dead on the German side whose demise citizens of the FRG (as well as the GDR, theoretically) could mourn publicly, as there was nobody really to blame for had happened (except that the evacuation operation Hannibal was launched far too late ...). And yet, Frank Wisbar, the commercially most successful of all remigrant auteurs (and one of the most urgent cases for serious film cultural re-evaluation!), refuses to play it easy: Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen is a sober, sombre, and sometimes unrelentingly grim work genre-wise difficult to place – sometimes it plays like a realist melodrama, at other times like a combat picture where the action never seems to happen – till it turns into all-out Armageddon. (OM) (Midnight Sun Film Festival)
(more)Cast
Sonja Ziemann
German Empire
Best movies:
Gunnar Möller
German Empire
Best movies:
Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (1959)
The Odessa File (1974)
Mussolini: The Untold Story (1985) (series)
Erik Schumann
German Empire
Best movies:
Chinese Roulette (1976)
Slavers (1978)
Veronika Voss (1982)
Brigitte Horney
German Empire
Best movies:
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1943)
Again the Ringer (1965)
The Trygon Factor (1966)
Dietmar Schönherr
Austria
Best movies:
The Longest Day (1962)
Journey of Hope (1990)
Brainwashed (1960)
Carl Lange
German Empire
Best movies:
The Desperado Trail (1965)
The Devil Strikes at Night (1957)
Und ewig singen die Wälder (1959)
Horst Frank
German Empire
Best movies:
Wolfgang Preiss
German Empire
Best movies:
The Longest Day (1962)
Un pont trop loin (1977)
The Train (1964)
Günther Ungeheuer
German Empire
Best movies:
Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (1959)
Maigret fait mouche (1966)
Didi auf vollen Touren (1986)
Gerda-Maria Jürgens
German Empire
Best movies:
The Truce (1997)
Little Vampire (1968)
Tatort (1970) (series)
Karl-Heinz Kreienbaum
German Empire
Best movies:
Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (1957)
The Captain from Köpenick (1956)
A Night to Remember (1958)
Christine Mylius
German Empire
Erich Dunskus
German Empire
Best movies:
The Mountain Calls (1938)
Sous les ponts (1945)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1943)
Erwin Linder
German Empire
Best movies:
Treasure of Silver Lake (1962)
Tip Not Included (1966)
Willy Maertens
German Empire
Best movies:
La Belle et l'empereur (1959)
The Captain from Köpenick (1956)
Wolfgang Stumpf
German Empire
Best movies:
The Bridge (1959)
Signs of Life (1968)
Edith Schultze-Westrum
German Empire
Best movies:
The Bridge (1959)
Mrs Dulská's Morals (1958)
The House in Karp Lane (1965)
Til Kiwe
German Empire
Best movies:
The Great Escape (1963)
The Longest Day (1962)
One, Two, Three (1961)
Carla Hagen
German Empire
Best movies:
Tatort (1970) (series)
Thomas Braut
German Empire
Best movies:
Cross of Iron (1977)
Die blutigen Geier von Alaska (1973)
Breakthrough (1979)