Dark Times Film Poster Exhibit Reflects Sensibilities in Germany 1945 to 1960 by Gary Tischler At first glance, hanging on the walls of the Goethe-Institut, they look like blown-up paperback book covers from the 1950s or late 1940s, or like American film noir movie postersóthe faces overblown, the poses outsized, the emotions almost vaudevillian and exaggerated. Youíve seen them before: the blonde molls, the fearful, big-eyed killers, the handsome heartthrobs with their square white faces, the ebulliently happy heroines, and the sinister, shadowy villains. Except that these posters are not American film samples or nostalgic pop culture. They are a reprise of an exhibition at the Goethe-Institut titled "Film Posters of German Cinema, 1945-1960," which was originally accompanied by a film series, "After the War, Before the Wall," from last year in which the actual films, now only seen as an echo in the form of poster art, were shown. But thereís more to these posters than that. You can use the posters, for instance, as a guide to a German post-war past, comparing it to the more recent Goethe film series "New Films From Germa ny," with its hip, violent, morally murky, inquisitive and irreverent list of films that showed a sensibility far removed from the Germany that was emerging from the physical and moral rubble of World War II. Or, if youíre of an age, you can dig through the posters for all the oddly familiar names and faces of your youthóthe faint stars dimly remembered, some of them big names in German film history, others briefly sparkling in American films. To be truly meaningful to a viewer, these posters require some pull to the past, some effort to understand. Otherwise, they become mere film trivia, circus oddities, or pictures at an exhibition, a little gold mine for film buffs and students of German cinema From a different vantage point, the posters tell you a lot about an ongoing post-war world in Germany. On the one hand, Germans under the dour but decidedly anti-Nazi were digging out of the ruin of the Third Reich and were on their way to achieving what is still recalled as nothing less than an economic miracle. Ordinary people did not view the period surrounding World War II as a rich mine of entertainment or as a place for making art. So a good part of what Germans saw at the movies were comedies with music full of fantasy, clowns, and other cheerful folks, some of whom would fall in love in a forest-field setting, often in Bavaria or the Black Forest. These were called "Heimatfilme" or homeland films, samples of which among the posters include "Das Wirtshaus in Spessart" ("The Spessart Inn"), with the charming Liselotte Pulver as a kind of Rosalind of the German forest, dressing up like a man and joining a bunch of charming robbers and rogues. (Pulver would later shorten her name to Lilo and have a brief fling with American films, including the funny Billy Wilder comedy "One, Two, Three.") More noir in flavoróand notoriousóis "Das M?dchen Rosemarie," or simply "Rosemarie." "Madchen" actually implies "young girl," but the young girl in this film was a call girl, and her story was more or less true. This is probably the most famous of the films among the posters, featuring Nadja Tiller as a prostitute who moved in the highest industrial circles of the post-war economic boom and was murdered. In the cast was Gert Fr^be, who would be forever famous as "Goldfinger." The poster is one of those dark and inviting, trashy and sexy typesóa lot like the more direct "Die S¸nderin" ("The Sinner"), which features the very blonde, svelte and youthful Hildegard Knef in a dark, tight-fitting cocktail dress letting her hair down. Neff had a brief Hollywood sojourn in the early 1950s where her husky voice and Lauren Bacall-like demeanor wasnít the typical glamour type. Here youíll also find Peter Lorre with his imitable morose face, which is practically a death mask, in the 1950s film he directed called "Der Verlorene" ("The Lost One"). It marked Lorreís return to Germany after a long Hollywood career, winding up as a box-office dud. Thereís not much here about the war itself, although there is a strange poster for "Der Arzt von Stalingrad" ("The Doctor From Stalingrad"), which features smiling German prisoners of war and the very unusual theme of being a feel-good movie about the battle of Stalingrad. Much of this exhibit can be seen as nostalgic trivia. The effect of the posters, however, is a different kind of nostalgiaóitís a memory and a road map to a Germany on its way to becoming a 20th-century economic force and how this future democracy saw itself in the dark of movie houses during a very dark time. "Film Posters of German Cinema, 1945-1960" runs through Feb. 28 at the Goethe-Institut Inter Nationes Washington, 812 7th St., NW. For more information, please call (202) 289-1200 or visit www.goethe.de/uk/was/enindex.htm. Gary Tischler is a contributing writer to The Washington Diplomat.