A fascinating noir from Germany, and one based in the very real situation that many found themselves after the impact of WWII, Black Gravel looks at people who are struggling to make ends meet, struggling to contain their resentments, and generally looking for ways to improve their lives. Some attach themselves to someone with prospects, trying to forget their past life. Some enter prostitution. Many look to make money from a lucrative black market system.
Robert Neidhardt (Helmut Wildt) is one of the latter, a truck driver who works with others to divert black gravel. It's going quite well, but there's soon a full investigation into the situation. There's also a reunion between Robert and an ex-girlfriend, Inge (Ingmar Zeisberg), although she is now married to an American military man (Hans Cossy), coming into the area because of the expansion of the American Air Force base that is boosting the local economy. Sparks fly, and everything is further complicated by the accidental death of a young couple on the road, leaving two corpses to be buried beneath some of that black gravel.
The first feature I have seen from director Helmut Käutner, who was quite the prolific film-maker throughout the 1950s and 1960s, this will hopefully not be my last. It's fantastic stuff, taking time to develop some fascinating central characters, as well as presenting the context of their lives. The screenplay, co-written by Käutner and Walter Ulbrich, moves along quickly enough, but also gives time for viewers to catch up with everything as new information is presented and the main situation starts to see-saw between good and bad consequences. The 113-minute runtime is perfect, even if the very end feels a bit more sudden than expected.
Wildt is very believable as the determined and occasionally-pretending-to-be-noble Neidhardt. He doesn't necessarily have bad intentions, aside from his black market profiteering, but he's also selfish and blinkered when it comes to possible ways out of a very bad situation. Zeisberg plays her part nicely in line with her co-star, easily showing why the two may be destined to stay connected to one another. Anita Höfer may have a much smaller role, but she steals a couple of scenes and ensures that you'll remember her long after the film has finished. And then there's Cossy, doing good work with what is arguably the most difficult of the main roles. Cossy also doesn't seem bad, per se, but it turns out that he's motivated in ways that are quite similar to our struggling truck driver. It's just that he has a different way of working his way up out of the metaphorical quicksand holding so many others down.
These are interesting characters in a unique situation, and Black Gravel holds up as one of the most atypical noirs I have watched in a very long time. I would have been drawn into this if it had just been showing me the lives of people in this strange situation. But the addition of some death and deceit takes it to another level.
It's also worth mentioning, just before I end this review, that Black Gravel also has some notoriety attached to it, considering a charge of antisemitism levelled against it that saw a couple of moments excised from the film for almost half a century. That footage has now been restored, and I implore everyone watching the film to ensure that they take note of the pre-feature notes contextualising this material.
9/10
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