(3 of 3)
Somehow this Matterhorn of warmed-over cabbage is not without a certain grandeur, and Director Wolfgang Staudte (Murderers Among Us) has made the most of it. He has dissolved the greasy German sentimentalities of his story in a lovely bath of light and Agfacolor. He has reduced the rigid forms of the stage play to the flowing substance of cinema. And he has aroused his actors to some very fine performances. Actor Messemer skillfully suggests a man who is more than he seems, while Actor Biberti devastatingly portrays a man who is less than he thinks. As for Actress Schell, she shows remarkable control of the subtle, brutal stages by which an unknowing girl is transformed into a bitterly experienced woman, who at the end can say with utter and awful authority: "What a small world you live in. You don't know what happens outside it. But I do. I have learned."