

111 minutes
1/14/1976
Based on the best-selling novel by Nobel-laureate Heinrich Böll, this drama is a passionate indictment of Catholicism. Hans Schnier (Helmut Griem) has earned his living as a clown, though he is in fact a very covert sort of social critic. After enduring a difficult childhood in Bonn during the Second World War, including his mother's fanatic Nazism, he is appalled to discover many of the people he knows and loves swept deeply into involvement in the Catholic Church.

Helmut Griem
as Hans Schnier

Hanna Schygulla
as Marie

Eva Maria Meineke
as The Mother

Hans Christian Blech
as Derkum

Jan Niklas
as Leo, Hans’ Bruder

Helga Anders
as Sabine

Rainer Basedow
as Zohnerer, Schniers Agent

Claudia Butenuth
as Monika Silvs

Dirk Dautzenberg
as Herr Silvs
Gustav Rudolf Sellner

Alexander May
Ben Hecker

Wolfram Koch