Castles and Cottages

After a lifetime spent serving the count, Anton is left physically broken and known around the village as Crooked Anton. When the estate is parcelled out after the war, he finally gets a small plot and hopes to work for himself, but old debts, local schemes and family strains keep undermining that hope. His daughter Annegret departs, and that departure helps other farmers realize they can assert new rights. The story traces Anton, his wife Marthe and their neighbors through the uneasy years after the conflict up to the unrest of 17 June 1953, showing how personal hardship and wider political shifts intersect without revealing how things end.

Released in 1957 and directed by Kurt Maetzig, the drama credits Kurt Barthel as creator. The cast includes Raimund Schelcher as Krummer Anton, Erika Dunkelmann as Marthe, Karla Runkehl as Annegret, Erwin Geschonneck as estate inspector Bröker and Harry Hindemith as Kalle Buddenboom, giving the film a strong ensemble feel focused on village life and social change.

Box office figures for Castles and Cottages aren't well documented. It didn't have a major international rollout, so contemporary commercial records are limited, and its circulation appears to have been regional rather than reflected in headline worldwide grosses.

The film has stuck in discussions about postwar German cinema because it places land reform and class tensions in a rural setting, and it references the 17 June 1953 unrest in a way that ties private hardship to public protest. Scenes of villagers asserting new influence and the portrayal of Anton as a moral center have kept it of interest to historians and scholars examining cinema and social policy.

Commentary on the movie highlights themes of social injustice, the burden of old obligations, and the slow reshaping of community power structures. Reviewers and later writers note its sober, realist style, its focus on family endurance and local politics, and its interest in how ordinary people respond when broader political forces reach the countryside.