Director Wolfgang Staudte who left East Germany in 1953 to make movies in West Germany, takes a few swipes at the West German judicial system in this fairly effective courtroom drama about the murder of a four-month-old baby. Police almost immediately arrest the mother Ingrid who is the mistress of the father, a rich business VIP married to another woman. His position and wealth keep him insulated from suspicion. A hot-shot lawyer has to overcome the unaccountably biased perceptions of the police, the judge, the prosecutor and almost everyone else in the judicial system. The defence lawyer, driven to an extreme, knows he has to find the real killer or his client will be convicted.
Martin Held
Hanns Lothar
Ellen Schwiers
Jürgen Goslar
Adelheid Seeck
Werner Hinz
Lore Hartling
Siegfried Wischnewski
Harald Juhnke
Otto Graf
Albert Bessler
Lucie Mannheim
Hans Hessling
Hellmut Grube
Rudi Schmitt
Herbert Tiede
Blandine Ebinger
Martin Berliner
Tilly Lauenstein
Ursula Diestel
Maria Milde
Alexa von Porembsky
Harald Sawade
Käte Alving
Hilla Höfer
Erich Dunskus
Ilse Trautschold