Episode 773: Black Gravel (1961)

Guest Co-Hosts: Samm Deighan, Andrew Nette

Noirvember 2025 keeps rolling with Helmut Käutner's Black Gravel (1961), a scalding portrait of postwar Germany buried under guilt, corruption, and American occupation. Mike is joined by Andrew Nette and Samm Deighan to dig into this bleak anti-Heimatfilm, where gravel trucker Robert Neidhardt (Helmut Wildt) scrapes by on the black market and rekindles an affair with Inge (Ingmar Zeisberg), now married to a U.S. officer. When an accident turns deadly, their secret unearths a moral wasteland of complicity and denial.

Once condemned by the Oberhausen critics as “the worst achievement by an established director,” Käutner’s film now stands as a bold, unflinching noir that dared to confront the rot beneath Germany’s economic miracle.

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Listen to "Episode 773: Black Gravel (1961)" on Spreaker.

Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy Black Gravel on Blu-Ray
Buy Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1960–1990 edited by Samm Deighan and Andrew Nette

Music:
"Fräulein Schmidt" - Billy Sanders

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Episode 666: The Apple Fell (1948)

Guest Co-Hosts: Samm Deighan, Emily Intravia

Emily Intravia and Samm Deighan join Mike on Episode 666 of The Projection Booth to look at Helmut Käutner's 1948 film Der Apfel ist ab (The Apple Fell AKA The Original Sin).

It's the story of Adam Schmidt (Bobby Todd) who is torn between his wife Lilith (Joana Maria Gorvin) and his mistress Eve (Bettina Moissi). Despondent, Adam tries to commit suicide among the ruins of post-war Germany. Instead of killing himself, he commits himself to a sanatorium where he undergoes an extended musical fantasy sequence which retells the Genesis story.

Listen/Download Now:

Listen to "Episode 666: The Apple Fell (1948)" on Spreaker.

Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy The Apple Fell on DVD-R

Music:
"Number of the Beast" - Zwan

Watch: