Billy Wilder’s madcap comedy takes place in a corporate Cold War Berlin.
James Cagney plays Mac, an American Coca-Cola executive holed up in the West side and hell-bent on giving a good impression of himself in the hope of being promoted. But his plans are put at risk when he’s asked to keep a watchful eye over his humourless boss’s dim-witted daughter during her stay in the capital.
When the day before her father’s arrival, Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin) reveals she’s married the scruffy beatnik Otto Piffl (Horst Buchholz) – an outspoken supporter of the People’s Republic of East Germany – Mac is sent into a freewheeling frenzy with trying to repair the situation.
In and out of the Brandenburg Gate, then a militarised checkpoint, in his card-carrying capitalist’s car, he buys favours with six-packs of soda and coaxes libidinous Soviets on-side with his curvaceous secretary.
Chock-full of national and political stereotypes, women don’t come off too well in this picture, but then nor does anyone else.
C.R. MacNamara
James Cagney Otto Ludwig Piffl
Horst Buchholz Scarlett Hazeltine
Pamela Tiffin Phyllis MacNamara
Arlene Francis Ingeborg
Liselotte (Lilo) Pulver Hazeltine
Howard St. John Schlemmer
Hanns Lothar Mrs Melanie Hazeltine
Lois Bolton Peripetchikoff
Leon Askin Mishkin
Peter Capell Borondenko
Ralf Wolter Fritz
Karl Lieffen Dr Bauer
Henning Schlüter Count von Drost-Schattenburg
Hubert von Meyerinck Zeidlitz
Karl Ludwig Lindt Tommy MacNamara
John Allen Cindy MacNamara
Christine Allen Bertha
Rose Renee Roth
Director
Billy Wilder
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