AllMovie

Engrossing, dramatic, and effective, this psychological drama about a film director and his friends and acquaintances does not, in the end, provide any solutions to the issues it so expertly raises. Robert Feldmann (Horst Buchholz), the filmmaker, decides to escape to Italy for awhile after his wife walks out on him. He installs a friend in his apartment and takes off, but his plans are almost immediately scotched when he gets into an accident and has to go back home to rest up. As it happens, rest is hardly what he finds; instead, he is pulled into the problems of his apartment-sitting friend (a chef in the restaurant on top of Munich's TV tower) and various females in his life, including a gorgeous married woman whom he beds. As Feldman tries to work out his personal, mid-life crises against this backdrop of characters, he concurrently gets an idea for a movie centered on the Munich TV tower where his friend works -- and the story takes an ominous turn toward its final denouement.