Very well executed

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Banned in Germany at the time of it's original release, due to fears of the movie of idol worship. This movie is now considered an gem for students of German history, particularly those interested in understanding the social class system in Imperial Germany. That's if they can find it. It's a hard movie to find. One of the hard things to figure out is what the name of the movie is, because it goes by with many different names. The first title is 'Der Untertan' which means 'the subject' which is the same name of Heinrich Mann's novel. It has been translated into English under the titles "Man of Straw," "The Patrioteer," 'The Kaiser's Lackey' and "The Loyal Subject" to the point, you don't know which movie, you might get. No matter what title you get, the story is the same. Set during the German Kaisereich, the film does an excellent job at illuminating the amoral world of nationalism. Diedrich Hesserling (Werner Peters) is a fearful man whom use any technique to advance in life to become a right hand man to the Kaiser himself. The man really did like the Kaiser and he was a obedient follower to the point, that he maintains a rigid dedication to the nationalist goals of the German state to anybody that knows him. Throughout the movie, Hessling's inflexible ideals are often contradicted by his actions: he is the strongest proponent of the military and preaches bravery but seeks to be excused from his obligatory military service in a cowardly way. When he got into politics, he hates greatest revolutionary Social Democrats, yet he uses his influence to help Social Democrats candidates win seats at the Reichstag (Congress) so they can defeat his Liberal competitors in business. After they win, he starts vicious rumors against the latter and then dissociates himself from them. He preaches and enforces Christian virtues upon others at his factory, but lies, cheats, and regularly commits infidelity himself. Director Wolfgang Staudte puts a spot on satire comedy of the hypocrisy of bourgeois society and the risk of social collapse in a nation of loyal mindless idolatry of authority citizens with symbolism like the toilet paper containing nationalistic slogans and dance number with pickelhaube helmet wearing dancing girls. Photographed beautifully and intelligently, one of the greatest shots in the film is when Diedrich finally get a chance to meet the Kaiser, and he's such a fan, he is running beside the carriage trying to get his autograph. That is a idolize moment. Staudte's film is expertly made, full of verve and wit and a visual vigor that is quite impressive. The director and his cinematographer, Robert Baberske, shoot the movie at a near-frantic pace, employing extreme angles and comedic manipulations. They enjoy juxtaposing their characters with telling objects, crafting deep focus compositions where Diedrich appears in frame with, say, a symbol of Teutonic grandeur, the symbol overshadowing the man that is in service to it. Staudte and his co-writer, Fritz Staudte, also employ a mocking narrator who barely keeps his disdain for Diedrich at bay. There is never a question that this is a man we are intended to despise. Still the movie is a propaganda film produced in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany), a Stalinist puppet state at the time. The humor is dry, and it's hard to watch somewhat. The black-and-white full frame image of movie is a fairly decent print. It has much dirt and scratches, but is otherwise clear and unobscured. The downside is that the interlaced transfer makes the image rather soft. The German soundtrack is given a basic mix that is largely clear. There is occasionally some hiss, as well as some unbalanced tones. The English subtitles are easy to read, moderately paced, and free of grammatical problems; they are, however, burned into the picture rather than optional. People who don't like coolly intellectual, literary comedies should not get this. The anti-hero doesn't change for the better and continues to be unlike by some who can't find themselves caring for the character's story. The ending is rather disappointing. In sum, though humorous this film is heavy-handed, unlike Staudte's subtle and truly outstanding 1949 film 'Rotation' which explains German history more incisively, or the 2009 film 'The White Ribbon', which artfully makes many of the same points about Wilhelmine Germany and the sources of Nazism. This film falls somewhat flat.

"Der Untertan" (1951), directed by star-director Wolfgang Staudte, is based on a novel by Heinrich Mann (1871-1950) as "Der Blaue Engel" (1930), directed by Josef Von Sternberg, is. While in "Der Blaue Engel", the protagonist is a person who cannot adapt to the world around him, and when he tries, shamefully stumbles and at the end pays his attempts with his life, the main figure in "Der Untertan" is so-to-say the complimentary character: Although born in an aristocratic, high-class family, surrounded by the world-literature and regular house-concerts and thus widely detached from bourgeoisie, he finds out that he may make carrier by breaking out of this status-group isolation in trying to meddle with politics. He also finds out that for him, the best way is to put hand over hand along the rope that leads upwards while kicking the ones who are coming below him. The result is, however, that he blunders not only in public but often also in his private life. The film has an interesting, yet totalitarian and typical GDR-end which kind of disturbs the otherwise excellently crafted master-piece for which Werner Peters in the role of Dr. Hessling and the director of the film got the Great GDR-State Price.This movie and an extremely impressive list of some hundreds of titles more, meanwhile practically the collected works of the DEFA, the state film company of the former GDR or DDR, we owe to the Department of German Studies of the University of Massachusets at Amherst that has obviously taken over the legacy to maintain and foster the gigantic film work of the "other" Germany which has ceased to exist in 1990.

It's not all that often that toadies get what's coming to them. Too often, when their political toadying days wind down, they join important New York law firms or become Washington "consultants," toadying in only a slightly different milieu, and able now to directly afford their bespoke suits and strip steak dinners at The Capital Grille. But then we have Diederich Hessling. The place is Germany and the time is before the turn of the century. Diederich (Werner Peters) is a superior toady in this superior East German satire from 1951. Hessling is an unlikable, pudgy little man, with a small, soft mouth. He is a perfect bourgeois, inwardly anxious and outwardly pompous. He was a fearful child, frightened of his father's cane and his mother's stories. Tattling on others at school was his satisfaction. He was attracted, while at university, to the shy Agnes, but when warned off by her family's boarder one evening, he hurriedly left her home. He joined with pride the Neo Teutons to drink beer with careful rituals and fearfully gained a dueling scar. As a cadet in the Kaiser's army he realized, we are told, that "the whole military set-up was aimed to reduce one's dignity to a minimum. This impressed him. Despite his misery he was filled with respect." Alas, his flat foot hurt, he said, and soon he was released with dramatic tales to tell. Then he must manage his family's factory when his father dies, lording it over the workers and nuzzling the town's leaders. He also manages to seduce the loving Agnes, who, having acquiesced is now of course unworthy of a man of his stature. His self-importance is as prominent as his newly up-turned moustache, identical to the Kaiser's. And now this pompous little man, Diederich Hessling, respected factory owner, leads us into a satire which is not all that amusing, with workers abused, Jewish blood gossiped about and patriotic Germanic delusions flowering with pride. We have self-satisfied town councilors, careful church leaders and elderly military men, toadies all in Diederich's stultifying middle class. His factory, which appears to make huge piles of rags from huge piles of rags, prospers. Dietrich has found a place for his self-importance and for his inner fearfulness. The Kaiser becomes his grail and patriotic nationalism strengthens his easily-led tattling proclivities. He is so proud of Germany, German power and his German Kaiser, that at his wedding to a plump and wealthy woman he introduces his guests to the latest German innovation from his factory, toilet paper. But good things, even toilet paper, never last. The obsequious Diederich Hessling finds himself over his head in a game of anxious brown nosing more complex than simply tattling on schoolmates. We may not know what Dietrich's fate is, but the movie gives us, with heavy Teutonic irony, a vivid look at what Germany's will be. The Kaiser's Lackey is sharp, good fun as long as it focuses on the fears and behavior we can find so amusingly contemptible in Diederich. But then the film moves into a more heavy- handed satire of complacent bourgeois German nationalism and society. The Kaiser's Lackey is amusing, but eventually moves into tedious irony. Still, if for nothing more than the satire of a smug society and a weak protagonist, as well as for Werner Peter's skilled toadying throughout, the movie is worth the time spent. The director, Wolfgang Staudte, had an unlikely career in films. He started out in the movie business under the Nazi's, eager as a young man to protect his film deferment to escape being sent to the front. He directed the first German movie after WWII, The Murderers Are Among Us, in 1946 with Ernst Borcert and Hildegard Kneff. It is probably the best movie he ever made, filmed amidst the miles of rubble in Berlin. It remains a powerful statement of guilt, redemption and hope. He directed films in East Germany, then West Germany, then a unified Germany. Staudte's life itself might make a good film.

This is a must see movie. Werner Peters and all the other cast members deliver superb performances. It has got an ensemble of top german character actors playing together on the same high level as we are used to get from the best of Preston Sturges' movies.The photography of Robert Baberske is a sheer delight, both lighting and framing are masterly done.If you have enjoyed Fritz Lang's "M" than you certainly will enjoy this one. The appeal of the story and characters may a bit more specific german, but the moral and "message" is timeless and is true to all western societies.Comedic film jewels like this are not made anymore - this makes it even less understandable that there is no DVD version around yet. (I know for certain that a top notch flawless negative for a digital transfer exists !!!)