It’s hard not to make comparisons between The Lost One, a film cowritten and directed by Peter Lorre and one in which he also stars, and M (1931), one of Lorre’s first film appearances twenty years earlier. Both films were produced in Germany, the first before Lorre’s escape from Nazi Germany and the second on his return to the country after Germany’s defeat at the end of World War II. Lorre’s performance in each film is spectacular in very different ways, but there are overlaps in theme and subject matter that seemed especially obvious to me because I saw The Lost One for the first time just a few weeks after seeing M.
You can see The Lost One free online. Click here to see it at the Internet Archive. The link gives you the option of seeing the film with and without English subtitles. I saw the film on DVD and at the archive, and the print at the archive is crisp compared to the DVD version. Click here to read my blog article about M.
In both films, Lorre plays a murderer, and both characters (that is, the murderers) make claims about not being able to rein in their murderous impulses. In M, it is implied that World War I had such a traumatic effect on both soldiers and civilians that it unleashed antisocial behaviors. (This point is brought up in the commentary provided on the DVD.) In The Lost One, all the characters are struggling to cope with wartime destruction and then the aftermath in the postwar period following World War II. Both films are bleak in their subject matter and in their portrayal of the human condition.
The Lost One includes a disclaimer stating that it is based on factual reports from the last few years (prior to 1951). It is what is known as a rubble film, a film produced on location amid the rubble left behind after the end of World War II. It was filmed in postwar Hamburg, Germany, and the war’s destruction is noticeable in almost every shot. The war still hangs heavy over German society after the end of the war. Much of the extended flashbacks feature the bombed-out city. The present of the film takes place in a refugee camp for people displaced by the war.
The narrative starts in the postwar period, when an attendant working in the Elbe-Duvenstett refugee camp meets Dr. Rothe and tells him that someone named Novak is waiting to meet him and to assist with dispensing vaccines for the newly arrived camp inhabitants. The attendant tells Rothe that Novak is a chemist from Katowitz. He has experience and can also help Rothe with his patient workload. Rothe is in the clinic to administer vaccines when Novak shows up. He and Rothe recognize one another immediately. Rothe is visibly upset, upset enough to get up, leave the clinic, and head to the railroad tracks.
After continuing his work in the clinic, Novak arrives to what he thinks is Rothe’s empty office. He helps himself to a drink and is startled when Rothe lights a cigarette in the dark. They share a past that neither wants to talk about, at least not right away. Both want to be sure that the other will keep their secrets. Novak tells Rothe that Winkler shot himself in the head. Rothe says that that leaves just the two of them: Novak and Rothe. Novak admits that he is on the run and needs identification papers. When they run out of alcohol in the doctor’s office, Rothe suggests that they move to the camp canteen, where they can eat and drink.
At this point, viewers are in the dark about the secrets that Rothe and Novak share, and they do not know who Winkler is or how he figures in their shared past. Rothe changed his name after the war to Dr. Neumeister and assumed a new identity. He already has identification papers. Novak’s name during the war was Hösch, and he needs identification papers to flee Germany.
Rothe and Novak continue their conversation when they arrive at the camp canteen, and Rothe says that everything changed for them on December 8, 1943. The mention of this date prompts the first of several long flashbacks that tell the story Rothe has been avoiding for years. Novak would rather avoid it, too, but unlike Rothe, he is barely perturbed by the past or his current situation. He is confident, even arrogant, about his role in his shared history with Rothe. He is also convinced that Rothe can be easily blackmailed and would never do anything to harm him. He even tells Rothe at one point that he is an amateur and that he could never pick up a gun and shoot him, even though Novak knows that Rothe has the gun that Novak once carried when he was still a member of the Gestapo. He needs identification papers to escape Germany and any postwar prosecution, and he is also confident that Rothe will help him escape.
(This article about The Lost One all the spoilers.)
The extended series of flashbacks reveals that Rothe and Novak’s shared dark past suggests they are not really all that different, even though Rothe was (and still is) a respected doctor and researcher developing vaccines and antibiotics, and Novak was a Gestapo agent working undercover in Rothe’s laboratory during the war. Viewers can infer that Novak is now a wanted war criminal. Inge Hermann, Rothe’s fiancé, sold his research secrets to the Allies in London via her father in Stockholm. Rothe learns about this from Colonel Winkler and Novak, and Novak learned of it by sleeping with Hermann and gaining her trust. When Winkler and Novak broke the news to Rothe, he was overcome by two betrayals: Hermann’s and Novak’s. The date is December 8, 1943, and Rothe eventually strangles Hermann later that day. Winkler and Novak cover up the crime by calling it a suicide.
Rothe tells Novak that Hermann confessed to the affair but not to the leak of his medical research to the Allies. She attempted a reconciliation with him, but he couldn’t go through with it when Novak called on the telephone. His intrusion into the discussion between Rothe and Hermann seems to have been the catalyst that pushes Rothe over the edge and prompts his first murder.
It was hard to tell if Rothe resented Novak’s intrusion only or if he feared what Novak would do if Hermann had been allowed to live indefinitely. Novak did say that he was willing to confront Hermann himself about the research secrets, but he didn’t say explicitly if part of his mission was to kill her. It is also hard to tell if Rothe feared any repercussions from the German state because of his own carelessness. It is possible that he was worried about all these factors. Once he kills Hermann, however, he continued his research, and Novak continued working at the institute alongside him.
But the burden of living with his actions eventually becomes too burdensome for Rothe. He goes through Novak’s desk at the institute looking for a cigarette, a small step that leads to one disaster after another. In addition to cigarettes, Rothe finds Inge Hermann’s letters to Novak; he also finds Novak’s gun. He burns the letters and then decides to kill both Colonel Winkler and Novak. His search for Novak leads him to Winkler’s house because he suspects Novak of being there when he cannot find him at work or at his own home. By chance, he comes upon a secret assassination plot to kill Adolf Hitler. He overhears other Nazi officers arriving at Winkler’s home and giving the password “Babylon.” He uses it to enter and eavesdrops on the officers discussing some details of the assassination attempt.
But Novak had followed Rothe to Winkler’s home. He knew that his gun was missing and was sure that Rothe had taken it after finding the burned letters. Novak arrives at Winkler’s home where he learns of the plot himself, but he doesn’t show himself to Rothe or anyone else in the home. He calls in other Gestapo agents, and the plot is foiled. Colonel Winkler escapes and returns Novak’s gun to Rothe. His last words are instructions to kill Novak.
Novak admits now, in the canteen at the refugee camp, that he lied to Rothe: Winkler never killed himself. He and other agents caught him as was trying to escape to Switzerland. They tortured him for more information and then hanged him. Rothe is thoroughly disillusioned at this point. He had come to admire Winkler for trying to organize an assassination attempt against Hitler, and he has even more contempt for Novak now that he knows Novak’s role in Winkler’s death.
Novak tells Rothe that he and Rothe have always been lucky, and they are both lucky now to be alive. But Rothe doesn’t want to be alive and remember all that he has done, which now includes his unwitting role in leading Novak to Winkler and the secret assassination plot. Rothe pulls out Novak’s gun and then shoots him before he even has a chance to look up from the meal in front of him. Novak never believed that Rothe could shoot him or kill anyone. After shooting Novak, Rothe leaves the camp canteen and walks back to the railroad tracks. He stands on the tracks waiting for the next train, and when it arrives, he doesn’t jump out of the way.
I saw The Lost One twice on a borrowed DVD and again at the Internet Archive. The subtitles, that is, the translation, was slightly different for both versions, and I would like to give a shoutout to the translators. The choices they make when translating influence the story in subtle ways, and I find it interesting to see the different versions. For example, the DVD translation specifically identified Hösch as a Gestapo agent. The translation at the Internet Archive identified him simply as a concerned employee of the institute where both he and Dr. Rothe work. Even the spelling of Hösch’s name differs between the two versions: Hösch versus Hoesch.
As I said, The Lost One is a very dark film, even for a film noir. There aren’t many films, noir or otherwise, that end with all the main characters dead, as they do in this film. It is another example of the desperation that continued for so many people in Europe after World War II ended. I tend to think of the armistice as a definite ending point to the war. All the conflict had ended, and society was finally able to return to normal. That’s what I was taught. But that was not really true, not even here in the United States, where there was no fighting and there was no rubble to remind people of the horrors of war. If everything really had returned to normal, there probably wouldn’t have been an audience for film noir after World War II.
The Lost One is a great film and a good representation of life during and immediately after World War II. I saw it three times, and repeat viewings are certainly a big help in understanding the plot, especially because it is a German film. But it is not necessarily an easy film to watch.
September 7, 1951, release date • Directed by Peter Lorre • Screenplay by Peter Lorre, Benno Vigny, Axel Eggebrecht, Helmut Käutner • Music by Willy Schmidt-Gentner • Edited by Carl Otto Bartning • Cinematography by Václav Vich
Peter Lorre as Dr. Karl Rothe (aka Neumeister) • Karl John as Novak (aka Hösch/Hoesch) • Helmuth Rudolph as Colonel Winkler • Johanna Hofer as Frau Hermann • Renate Mannhardt as Inge Hermann • Eva Ingeborg Scholz as Ursula Weber • Lotte Rausch as Helene, the woman on the train • Gisela Trowe as the prostitute • Hansi Wendler as Dolien, Rothe’s secretary • Kurt Meister as Preefke • Alexander Hunzinger as the drunk • Josef Dahmen as Liske, the canteen manager • Georg Siebert as Placzek, the man with the injured eye
Distributed by National-Filmverleih • Produced by Arnold Pressburger Filmproduktion
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