Although he spent a relatively short period of his life in Austria, Canadian-born John Cook (1935–2001) remained, in his own words, "Viennese by choice.” Having worked as a commercial photographer in Paris, Cook’s […] first “regular” production was Schwitzkasten, based on a novel by the leftist writer Helmut Zenker. Today, the film is considered one of the few undisputed masterpieces of the New Austrian Cinema: a freewheeling, tender, and strangely humorous portrait of working-class (and out-of-work) lives.
Hermann Juranek
as Hermann
Christa Schubert
as Vera
Johanna Froidl
as Frau Gretl
Franz Schuh
as Ehrlich
Werner Juranek
as Hermann's brother
Waltraud Misak
as Rosi
Josef Boselmann
as Hermann's father
Elisabeth Boselmann
as Hermann's mother
