Germany in the autumn of 1957: Lola, a seductive cabaret singer-prostitute exults in her power as a temptress of men, but she wants out—she wants money, property, and love. Pitting a corrupt building contractor against the new straight-arrow building commissioner, Lola launches an outrageous plan to elevate herself in a world where everything, and everyone, is for sale. Shot in childlike candy colors, Fassbinder’s homage to Josef von Sternberg’s classic The Blue Angel stands as a satiric tribute to capitalism.

In Berlin, when the journalist Greg Bachmann is released from prison six months before the end of his sentence, there is a driver named Jupp waiting for him. Soon he learns that the famous journalist Cesar Boyd was the responsible for the shorter sentence. Cesar offers a position of his assistant to Greg; in return, Boyd would write his story about his interviews to war criminals and Greg would help him in other matters. Meanwhile Boyd welcomes the daughter of a deceased friend, Bettina, and he becomes her guardian.

German romance