“The film acts as a time capsule for both a city that was lost and the aspirations of its creators without sacrificing its desire to show what life is like when you’re young and full of life.”
An early experiment in neo-realist filmmaking, People on a Sunday is a low-budget drama about two men, a cab driver and a salesman, who find themselves with nothing to do on a Sunday in Berlin.
The friends meet a couple of young women, and the four spend the day wandering the city streets before heading to a beach in Wannsee, where they go swimming and enjoy an idyllic afternoon by the lake. After a genial but determined attempt at seduction by the two men, the foursome returns to Berlin, with the depressing prospect of another working week looming before them.
One of the key films of the Weimar era, People on Sunday marked the start of the film careers of six cineastes who would go on to great international successes: Billy Wilder, Robert and Curt Siodmak, Edgar G Ulmer, Eugen Schüfftan and Fred Zinneman.
