West German cinema of the 50s and 60s saw several cycles of literary adaptations by the same writer. It might say a thing or two about the audience of those years that among those authors were two with the highest possible literary distinction: Thomas Mann and Gerhart Hauptmann. The former had been vilified in the first years after the end of WWII by the conservative and reactionary forces in Germany due to his emigration to the US (as well as his unsparing comments about the Germans’ willing support of the Nazis). The latter, on the other hand, had stayed in fascist Germany and tacitly accepted the Nazis’ (ab)use of his name. Considering the politically ambiguous status of Hauptmann, it’s fascinating that his works should inspire several of the 50s most outstanding films. The most celebrated one was the cycle’s opener, re-migrant Robert Siodmak’s FRG-debut Die Ratten (1955). Yet, those that followed often proved more daring, complex and twisted—and none more so than Wolfgang Staudte’s terribly underappreciated, expressive and unruly Rose Bernd that, like all other 50s Hauptmann-adaptations, re-imagined the original work in a contemporary setting, with the titular character being turned into a refugee. The atmosphere is doom-laden while full of wild-going-mad emotions, brought to the fore as much by an extraordinary ensemble of actors as by the film’s eye-popping colors.