Der Eiserne Gustav (1958)

Berlin, shortly before the start of the Great Depression in 1928: Gustav Hartmann, once a carriage operator, can no longer support his family as a horse-cab driver. Meanwhile, even his former customers now prefer motor taxis. Hartmann hides the situation from his wife, Marie. He borrows money from the innkeeper Vietzke, putting up his home and the adjoining property as security. His family finds out by chance and wants to have him declared mentally incompetent so as not to jeopardize their shared livelihood. Hartmann is outraged to be summoned to court, but is also becoming increasingly at a loss. So he drives his horse-drawn cab and his horse, Lotte, aimlessly out of the city. The newspaper reporter Mahrenholz tracks him down, promises him 500 marks for a trip to Paris, and accompanies him there. Through Mahrenholz, the general public learns of Gustav’s plan. News of it reaches even small communities, where people everywhere give the traveler an enthusiastic welcome. When Gustav Hartmann arrives in Paris, the public is initially not interested in him because Charles Lindbergh has just completed his first flight across the Atlantic, leaving the cab journey in the shadow of public attention. So Hartmann drives alone through Paris, scattering the postcards bearing his picture that he had commissioned for the reception originally planned for him. A few days later, once the excitement over Lindbergh has died down, journalists and staff from the German embassy go looking for him. After the festive reception is finally held, and even shown in the newsreel, Hartmann sets off on the journey home from Paris to Berlin. When he arrives, the waiting crowd in his hometown also gives him an enthusiastic welcome. He reconciles with his family and decides to invest the money he earned on the journey in an automobile repair shop with a gas station, which he plans to open together with his son-in-law, Otto Kroppke.