A once prominent movie star (Rosel Zech) who earned her start under Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry becomes romantically involved with a reporter (Hilmar Thate) who suspects her neurologist (Annemarie Durringer) of keeping the faded actress under her influence through the use of morphine. Rainer Werner Fassbinder's reimagining of the tragic demise of German actress Sybille Schmitz (his death mirroring her own not long after the release of the film) is shot in brilliant black and white in a melodramatic almost campy mood yet of course with the darker undertones evoking Wilder's Sunset Blvd or even What Ever Happpened to Baby Jane. Zech and Thate are both superb.
*** 1/2 out of ****
