The turmoil of the last days of the war. 13-year-old Tom loses his mother while on the run. In Vienna he meets the one-legged black marketeer 'Krücke' - a sly, cunning survivalist and at the same time an adorable, kind friend. The two find shelter with Bronka, a Jewish woman who serves alcohol to Allied soldiers and black marketeers. Tom and Krücke settle into this insecure world. Krücke plays the saxophone, Tom waits tables, until one day a return to Germany becomes possible. But the train that the one-legged man and the boy board is stranded in no man's land...
Acting
Heinz Hoenig's Krücke balances sleaze and tenderness perfectly.
Production
Vienna's bombed-out grandeur becomes a character itself.
Director
Jörg Grünler
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film captures a rarely depicted moment: Austria's immediate post-war limbo, neither Nazi nor fully 'liberated,' where black marketeers became accidental humanitarians.
The real train used in the no man's land sequence was an actual decommissioned military transport — the cast reportedly refused to leave it between takes, claiming it was ' warmer than the hotel.'
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