Balthasar in a traffic jam

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Movie
Original title Balthasar in a traffic jam
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1979
length 60 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Rudolf Jugert
script Werner Jörg Lüddecke
Jon Watkins
production Gyula Trebitsch
camera Gero Erhardt
occupation

Balthasar im Stau is a four-part German episode film made in 1978 with Heinz Rühmann as a taxi driver. Directed by Rudolf Jugert , whose last film this was.

action

The focus of all four short episodes lasting around 15 minutes is an older taxi driver in various European metropolises, who each time has a certain experience with his passenger.

Episode 1: "Denise in the 5th race"

The old Monsieur Lefèvre, a French taxi driver, has been visiting his friend Denise, a somewhat plump, middle-aged florist, every morning for 20 years. One day there is an argument between the two and Lefèvre is drawn to the racecourse. There he bet all his money on the outsider "Denise" in the fifth race ... and wins.

Episode 2: "Tea for two"

The aging Mr. Brown has two jobs: he works both as a station master at a small train station and as a taxi driver. The lovable elderly gentleman is not particularly taken for full in his environment. But when one day the Queen's special train unexpectedly stops at his station, its big hour strikes. Brown takes heart, seizes the moment and climbs into the royal rail vehicle for a tea for two.

Episode 3: "Balthasar in a traffic jam"

The third episode that gives the film its name takes place in the Dutch capital Amsterdam. Cornélius Balthasar van Krogg has been working there as a taxi driver for almost 25 years. Balthasar is a very conscientious chauffeur who always obeys the traffic rules and has never received a ticket. One day, however, he gets into a borderline situation that cannot be reconciled with his credo: A heavily pregnant woman named Saskia enters his vehicle and urgently needs to be driven to the hospital. Balthasar immediately gets caught in a traffic jam. Now he has no choice but to throw his principles overboard and commit a traffic violation ...

Episode 4: "How about Shakespeare?"

The eccentric English Lord Barclay has a strange hobby: he likes to be a taxi driver. One day, the Cooper couple, two American tourists, get into their car and want them to drive them to a nearby Shakespeare festival. But instead he chauffeurs the two of them to his somewhat enchanted mansion, Barclay Manor, where the ghost of his ancestor, Sir Archibald Barclay, is supposed to be up to mischief.

Production notes

Balthasar im Stau , subtitle Four Moving Stories , was created in 1978 and was broadcast for the first time on Sunday, March 4, 1979 at 8 p.m. on ZDF.

Reception and classification

After his phase of rebellion against the role cliché of the indestructible "little man from the street", which he largely adhered to after around 100 films, which he tried to counter with literary roles of bulky and desperate characters in his early television films (1968 to 1973), Rühmann returned for the Hamburg production company Gyula Trebitschs returned to the tried and tested with three episode films at the end of the 1970s. “He no longer played tragic or failing characters, at most melancholy doubters or seekers who, in the end, were definitely helped. With these age roles, he came closer to the stories of the 'little man', which ended in a conciliatory manner and rarely dismissed the viewer with a conflicted worldview. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Torsten Körner: A good friend. Heinz Rühmann biography

Web links