A well known historical fact among older people in Hungary: Poor maidservant Esther Solymosi commits suicide for hopeless love. The local Jewish community has been accused for murdering her. They fight for righteousness in a long court process. Enlightened politician Dr. Karoly Eötwös triumphs over prejudice and racism. The black and white movie is some long and boring. However, for viewers knowing or interested in society of their grandparents it is an excellent presentation of how they lived and thought. Especially it shows the old roots of antisemitism in Eastern Europe resulting in most terrible crime of history: holocaust.
2 Reviews
Bad Pabst
rmh328319 August 2021
Tedious and tendentious, totally lacking in finesse or nuance. Ernst Deutsch and Ewald Balser were fine actors entirely wasted by the overwrought script. It occurs to me that this might be Pabst trying to prove he was a good guy despite having willingly made films for the Third Reich. His sentimentality fatally infects his story of 19th century antisemitism. For a far more compelling treatment of this theme, see Erich Engel's Affaire Blum, also from 1948.
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