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