Dir: Gerd Oswald | Cast: Curd Jurgens, Claire Bloom, Mario Adorf, Hansjorg Felmy | Germany Thriller
Gerd Oswald returned to the land of his birth to make this memorable version of the story by Stefan Zweig.
After a striking credit sequence with electronic music by Hans Martin Majewski we learn that Curd Jurgens has developed an uncanny ability to win at chess.
The story then flashes back to the meat of the story in the form of a quite remarkable sequence in which our hero has been confined by the Gestapo to solitary confinement in a prison cell in Vienna. Yearning for something to read he spends ages and with great difficulty trying to get at a book protruding from his jailer’s jacket hanging from a clothes stand which he’s noticed is tantalisingly just out reach.
When he finally achieves his objective and examines his prize the look on Jurgen’s face as his eyes widen with combined horror and disgust is a marvel to behold: it’s a handbook detailing fifty great chess matches!!
Still, a book is a book so he starts reading the thing and has soon learned the contents by heart. And thereby hangs a tale. @RichardChatten
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