Before the Lightning Strikes

Plot

Heinz, an ambitious reporter of the Berlin am Morgen newspaper, had made a fatal error when he prepared an article about a locomotives factory, confusing the successful and motivated Schneider Workers Brigade with the negliegent Schindler Brigade. He also presented the tyrannical manager as a paragon of virtue. Heinzs editor, Christine, decides to send him to the factory for another mission, and this time he should mingle with workers by joining them. Heinz, who takes the new assignment with little enthusiasm, becomes a highly motivated laborer and even manages to influence the Brigades members to stop quarrelling. He also helps the manager to reconnect with his subordinates. Heinzs second article is welcomed as brilliant.

Cast

Production

Before the Lightning Strikes was part of a wave of light-hearted comedies released in the late 1950s to provide entertainment for the viewers, after the DEFA Board noticed the publics negative response to the ideological films made earlier in the decade. The picture still encountered several problems, and the DEFA Commission in the Socialist Unity Party of Germanys Politburo insisted on it featuring "contemporary socialist issues." It had to be completely revised before it was approved for screening. It was the third in a series of four comedies made in collaboration between director Richard Groschopp and writers Lothar Creutz and Carl Andriessen, who also worked on Sie kannten sich alle (1958) Ware fur Katalonien (1959) and Die Liebe und der Co-Pilot (1960).

Reception

The West German Catholic Film Service described the film as "combining entertainment with contemporary issues, made in a cabaret style." Dieter Reimer called it "a witty comedy."