© 2014 William Ahearn

Emil is on a train bound for Berlin with some cash for his grandma when he takes candy from a stranger and ends up drugged and robbed. Instead of being defeated and dejected, he decides to get the money and get even all in one swoop. In Berlin he finds other children ready to help him and these detectives seek out the robber and try and get the money back. Really fun film and a counterpoint to what passes for the doom and gloom of the Weimar era.

This is the first version of Erich Kästner’s classic novel to be adapted to the screen and it was directed by Gerhard Lamprecht based on a script by Billy Wilder and Emeric Pressburger. Great fun and starring Rolf Wenkhaus, Käthe Haack, Fritz Rasp, and numerous others.