Director Wolfgang Staudte who left East Germany in 1953 to make movies in West Germany, takes a few swipes at the West German judicial system in this fairly effective courtroom drama about the murder of a four-month-old baby. Police almost immediately arrest the mother Ingrid who is the mistress of the father, a rich business VIP married to another woman. His position and wealth keep him insulated from suspicion. A hot-shot lawyer has to overcome the unaccountably biased perceptions of the police, the judge, the prosecutor and almost everyone else in the judicial system. The defence lawyer, driven to an extreme, knows he has to find the real killer or his client will be convicted.
Martin Held
as Direktor Werner Rameil
Hanns Lothar
as Rechtsanwalt Dr. Fox
Ellen Schwiers
as Ingrid Bernhardy
Jürgen Goslar
as Dr. Heinz Stephan
Adelheid Seeck
as Gerda Rameil
Werner Hinz
as Landgerichtsrat Ricker
Lore Hartling
as Assessorin Ebeling
Siegfried Wischnewski
as Kriminalinspektor Gerhuf
Harald Juhnke
as Kriminalsekretär Wenzel
Otto Graf
as Anwalt Dr. Beyer
Albert Bessler
as Dr. Hollberg
Lucie Mannheim
as Frau Bernhardy