Black Gravel

BLACK GRAVEL: too jaded for love?

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Ingmar Zeisberg and Helmut Wildt in BLACK GRAVEL

On December 14, Turner Classic Movies airs the super hard-to-find German neo-noir romance Black Gravel. It’s not streaming, so this is your best chance.

In the German film noir Black Gravel (Schwarzer Kies), Inge, the beautiful German wife of an American military base commander, runs into the shady hustler Robert, her former lover. He is one cynical dude and an asshole, but he doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Their reunion is bad for her, bad for him and bad for everyone.

The most common situation in film noir is a guy who falls for a dame (or a dame who falls for a guy) to his ruin. The sap is infatuated and thinks he’s in love. Here we have two characters and the question is whether they are really in love. Robert insists that he doesn’t love ANYONE, even as he is trying to rekindle the romance with Inge. Inge insists that it’s over. But is it over – for either of them? That’s what – in the end – Black Gravel is really all about – noir romance

In the last twenty minutes, the circumstances swivel. Rarely has a movie plot swung as rapidly between They’re gonna get caught – No, they’re gonna get away with it – No, They’re gonna get caught – No, they’re gonna get away with it – No, They’re gonna get caught – No, they’re gonna get away with it – No, They’re gonna get caught.

Ingmar Zeisberg and Helmut Wildt in BLACK GRAVEL

Robert is played by Helmut Wildt, a German actor I hadn’t seen before. He is charismatic and confident, with a breezy swagger that reminds me of Ben Gazzara. The deeply conflicted Inge is played ably by Ingmar Zeisberg.

Anita Höfer, Helmut Wildt and Ingmar Zeisberg in BLACK GRAVEL

Black Gravel is set in a tiny German town corrupted by the presence of an US Air Force base, It’s the Phenix City of Germany, a sordid, trashy place. The character of Elli (Anita Höfer) is LITERALLY a slut.

Black Gravel is filled with tart observations of I Like Ike America, with its bland, conventional uniformity. The Germans are an amoral lot, reduced to leeching off the Americans. The Americans are clueless marks.

Helmut Wildt and Anita Höfer in BLACK GRAVEL

Note: A dog dies in the first minute of the film. I recommend that you don’t let this put you off this superb film; but, there it is, you’ve been warned.

The current version restores some bits that were cut from the film in 1961, supposedly as offensive to Jews. Those were probably the anti-semitic slurs uttered by unsympathetic characters; these slurs were not intended to debase Jews, but to illustrate the post-war continuation of antisemitism among Germans. (There’s some German racism in here, too). These are actually ANTI-antisemitic moments in the movie that were misunderstood at the time.

Unfortunately, it’s not streamable, but screenings can be booked from Kino Lorber, and it’s available for purchase in Blu-ray and DVD. I saw it at the 2020 Noir City.

Black Gravel was written and directed by Helmut Käutner. We don’t recognize this until late in the movie, but it turns out there’s no better noir romance than Black Gravel.

Helmut Wildt and Ingmar Zeisberg in BLACK GRAVEL

NOIR CITY comes to your home

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Ingmar Zeisberg and Helmut Wildt in BLACK GRAVEL

Here’s a once-in-a-pandemic film noir experience, the opportunity to see classic film noir that you can’t see anywhere else. The Noir City International at the AFI Silver is available to stream through November 29.

Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president, the Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and movies not available on DVD or streaming.

This January, as usual, I attended this year’s festival, sharing the program with a thousand other film fans in a vintage movie palace, San Francisco’s Castro Theatre. In normal years, Eddie Muller then takes the program on the road, but the pandemic eliminated the satellite Noir City mini-fests in other cities. Good news – this year’s festival program is streaming through the AFI Silver so everyone can watch it at home.

This year’s program is Noir City International 2 – l focusing on international film noir, as it did so successfully six years ago. Then I was enthralled by the Argentine Bitter Stems and the Swedish Girl with Hyacinths, and must admit that I had never even imagined that vintage film noir from those nations existed. This year’s fest brings us titles from Argentina, France, Germany, Korea, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Italy, and Poland.

One of best things about Noir City is the opportunity to see films that are not available to stream. This year Noir CIty is outdoing itself by presenting SIX films that can’t found on a streaming platform, most of them impossible to see outside of Noir City in any format.

  • Black Gravel (West Germany 1961)
  • The Black Vampire (Argentina 1953)
  • …And the Fifth Horseman Is Fear (Czechoslovakia 1965)
  • The Devil Strikes at Night (West Germany 1957)
  • Panique (France 1947)
  • Razzia (France 1955)

Pale Flower, Ashes and Diamonds and Any Number Can Win are only available to stream periodically on the Criterion Channel.

“Difficult to find” doesn’t mean “obscure”. The program includes films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Pierre Melville and Roebert Siodmak and starring Ingrid Bergman, Jean Gabin, Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

PALE FLOWER

My personal favorites on the program:

  • Pale Flower: Writer-director Masahiro Shinoda’s masterpiece is a slow burn that erupts into breathtaking set pieces. This is pioneering neo-noir; its look and feel is as different from classic noir as are Elevator to the Gallows and Blast of Silence.
  • Black Gravel: This tragic romance is set in post-war Germany, a Petri dish for hustlers. Rarely has a movie plot swung as rapidly between They’re gonna get caught – No, they’re gonna get away with it – No, They’re gonna get caught – No, they’re gonna get away with it – No, They’re gonna get caught – No, they’re gonna get away with it – No, They’re gonna get caught.
  • Ashes and Diamonds: Auteur Andrzej Wajda‘s filmmaking gifts are on display in this Hit Man Finds Love tale, set as the Polish Resistance battles for a place in post-war Poland. As kinetic and unpredictable as James Dean, Zbigniew Cybulski makes for an irresistibly charismatic leading man.
  • The Black Vampire: In this often trippy 1953 remake of Fritz Lang’s M, Nathán Pinzón is AT LEAST AS GOOD as was Peter Lorre in the original.

The offerings also include Leave Her to Heaven with Gene Tierney as the most disturbing female villain in film noir and Detour with Ann Savage as the grungiest and most predatory. The Korean The Housemaid is so bizarre as to defy description. And the coolest middle-aged guy in cinema, Jean Gabin, stars in Razzia and Any Number Can Win.

DO NOT MISS this rare opportunity. Individual screenings are $12 and the Festival Pass is $125. Explore the program and get your pass or tickets.

Zbigniew Cybulski in ASHES AND DIAMONDS