Fassbinder adapts the stark black-and-white universe of film noir and infuses its cynicism with crazy love: actual and soon-to-be corpses get all the hugs in this film. Fassbinder called The American Soldier, made in ten days, “the study of a perfect killer.” Ricky (Karl Scheydt), in Germany following a stint in Vietnam, is a hired gun holed up in a hotel room waiting for orders that come anonymously from a mob of, as it turns out, cops. As in Fritz Lang, criminals and police are a delicate web. Ricky drives a big convertible, orders whiskey and sex room-service, wears white, moves around in the dark, and will kill anyone. But as the hotel maid (Margarethe von Trotta) laments, “Being happy isn't always fun.” Fassbinder honors, by naming characters after them, the directors Murnau, Fuller, and “Walsch” (the added “c for crime”); and himself appears as Ricky's friend from the old days, who asks, “What was Vietnam like?” “Just like here.”