Port of Freedom

Hannes spent years at sea and now sings in an entertainment hall in St. Pauli, Hamburg. He promises his dying brother that he will look after the brother's former girlfriend, Gisa. He brings her to Hamburg, takes her in, and quickly falls in love with her. But Gisa's heart is with somebody else, and Hannes has to accept it. Helmut Käutner's production moved from Berlin to occupied Prague because of the bombing in 1943, and was shot in the new colour process. The propaganda ministry expected a hymn to the German merchant marine; Käutner delivered the story of a beaten, disordered, melancholy man instead. Goebbels did not like it and would not allow it to be shown inside Germany. German audiences only saw it after 1945.