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The enduring popularity of German film star Hans Albers helped to make Vor Sonnenuntergang a success. Based on a play by Gerhardt Hauptmann, the film details a bittersweet May-December romance between ageing Mathias Clausen (Albers) and young, beautiful Inken Peters (Annemarie Dueringer). Though there were a few American observers who felt uncomfortable during the romantic scenes, German audiences ate them up like strudel. In his later performances, Hans Alber was inclined to hamminess, and this film is no exception; still, he is quite convincing in the film's more dramatic passages. Released in English-speaking countries as Before Sundown, Von Sonnenuntergang was the sole German entry at the 1956 Berlin Film Festival.