Hans Albers, the blond, blue-eyed hero of Käutner's Hamburg romance and male melodrama, is the closest one comes to a Siegfried among the Third Reich's leads. "He is," claimed Nazi publicist Oskar Kalbus, "the embodiment of and testimony to the German idea of masculinity." Fritz Hippler insisted that male spectators could learn from the actor how to be macho: "After an Albers film, even an apprentice hairdresser becomes like Albers: just let anybody try to give him a bad time." The star's dynamic body language stands out amidst the controlled physicality characteristic of his contemporaries. He would appear to be an anomaly in a cinema where lusty men are in short supply, where a sexualized male invariably bears negative markings. But in fact even Albers's virility seems uncertain, making him a much more interesting presence. He may well come on like a ladykiller, but sensual abandon in the arms of beautiful women does not seem to be his top priority. Again and again, his films conclude with him forsaking women for a male bond. Goebbels disliked Great Freedom No. 7 and ordered that it be banned, expressing dismay that it dwelled on sad and needy males rather than extolling rough-and-tumble German men.-E.R.