User Reviews

The Sinner was heralded by a storm of publicity regarding its director Willi Forst (Austrian director and actor of mostly charming comedies and musicals) and its young pretty star Hildergarde Neff. The film was Forst's second effort since 1943, and as such it was highly anticipated. The film was also Neff's last German production before her "new" career in Hollywood. According to most contemporary reviews, The Sinner was considered unworthy of Forst's and Neff's talents, though this may have been a negative reaction to the publicity blitz. The film casts its star as a young girl who is no better than she ought to be, but whose good intentions outweigh her bad impulses.

SPOILERS: Believing she has finally found true love in the form of an artist (Gustav Frolich of Metropolis fame), the girl is in for a major disappointment when her lover begins behaving erratically due to a brain tumor. The spectacularly tragic ending to this sorry little tale, coupled with a handful of highly censurable love scenes (nude paintings and one at a distance nude posing), seriously impaired any chances for The Sinner to achieve box-office success in the U.S.

But if you like the genre of romantic tragedy it falls into the same class as Mayerling (1936) and Liebelei (1933, directed by an uncredited Max Ophuls) and it's later remake Christine (1958).

A moderate scandal in its day, Willi Forst's The Sinner doesn't leave much of an impact now, although one may enjoy registering the various points of bygone envelope-pushing: a brief nude scene; a wild party which manages to convey a passing sense of recklessness despite everyone having their clothes on; the fairly non-judgmental portrayal of a woman, Marina (Hildegard Knef), working a world of men for her own financial advantage. Marina's life of sinning, which includes sleeping for profit with a besotted stepbrother whom she hates, and consorting indifferently with Nazi soldiers during the war and American ones thereafter, comes mostly to an end when she falls in love with a troubled painter, Alexander (not entirely though - for instance, during a phase when Alexander's work isn't selling, she helps things along by having sex with an art dealer). Alexander's profession fuels a few expressionist highlights, such as the arty juxtapositions of his head against titillating extracts from his work, but Gustav Frohlich's dull performance makes the character's artistic identity, and the attraction between him and Marina, more mysterious than seems to be intended; the disappointing ending merely suggests that while Marina may at one time have been defined by her sinning, she now finds definition only in Alexander's eyes and work, to the point of seeing no worthwhile existence without him. Among other weaknesses, the film has an overly busy structure, tiresomely navigating between past and present as it attempts to place Marina's current actions in context, while its over-reliance on her voice-over (which accounts for well over half of all words spoken in the film) imposes a recurring tonal similarity. And while, as noted, the film doesn't entirely deny Germany's then-recent past (it also includes a brief appearance by some Gestapo agents), the absence of much perspective in this regard doesn't age too well either.

"Die Sünderin" or "The Sinner" or "The Story of a Sinner" is a West German German-language movie from 1951, so this one has its 65th anniversary this year. Despite color films existing in Germany already a decade earlier, this one here is a black-and-white film. The runtime according to IMDb is 100 minutes, but the one I saw was considerably shorter, barely made it üast the 80-minite mark, but it also was without credits. Still, there probably exist several versions of this film, maybe also due to the (then) scandalous scenes. The director is Willi Forst and it is one of his most known works. His co-writers Marischka and Menzel worked on other pretty prestigious projects themselves during their long careers. Marischka was also a successful actor. But back to this one here. It caused lots of controversy back in the day because of the nudity depicted in here and it shows that it is so incomparable compared to today's standards in what we see as offensive or inappropriate. With all this controversy, people almost forgot about the story. The main character is a prostitute, so the nudity actually makes sense. She is played by Hildegard Knef in one of her career-defining performances. Herman is played by Gustav Fröhlich and he managed a successful transition from silent films to sound films. Both give decent performances overall I guess, but I personally did not find either of the two really likable enough to deeply care for what happens to them. Besides, Knef's constant voice-over narration 8sometimes pretty over-the-top) gets somewhat annoying at some point, maybe halfway into the film that one loses even more interest in it. This is quite a pity as the first 30-40 minutes were quite interesting and enjoyable when we learn who the characters are and what they are all about. It's also nice that the focus was really on 2 characters only and did not include any pointless additional material or references that would have been forgettable eventually anyway. But still, because of the decline in quality and the weak ending, I mean the final relatively unrealistic plot twist about who dies (it's not love in my opinion, it's giving up yourself for the other and I don't like it), I just cannot give this movie a thumbs-up or recommend checking it out. Quite a shame. If it had stayed the way it was early on, my decision certainly would have looked different. Watch something else instead.