Despite the considerable talents of Georg Thomalla as a physical comedian this is yet another very poor effort. Mostly to blame are the writers. While the main story line of someone secretly photographed for an advertising campaign merely stretches credibility, the supporting story of everyone brown-nosing the suspected lottery winner (and then rejecting him once this turns out to be an error) just does not ring true. Or rather - it sounds like a story from a different era, and I have the slight suspicion that the writers raided some piece of (say) 19th century literature (perhaps a play), I just cannot say which. One could still have placed this in the Germany of 1952, but in the much more prosperous place Germany was 20 years later it does not make much sense any longer.
To make matters worse, the film makers felt the need to add (young) romance to the film, because that's what all German comedies of the period had, for better or worse. Here it's for worse - Ulla Wendt (Uschi Glas) is just too sweet, and Thomas Conrad (Chris Roberts) has really nothing to do but be a love interest.
The humour is generally heavy-handed, of the kind that works reasonably well on stage but much less well on celluloid. What makes it appear even more dated are some fleeting moments of almost Chaplinesque melodrama.
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