Der Gauner und der liebe Gott (1960)

The crook and safecracker Paul Wittkowski is standing trial for the fourth time for burglary at Munich’s Palace of Justice, but this time he is innocent. Nevertheless, he is sentenced to eight years in prison, followed by preventive detention. As he is about to be led out of the courtroom, Wittkowski manages to break free and flee into a church. There he asks God for help and, as a result of a misunderstanding, receives a little cash and a cassock, which he tries to use to escape disguised as a priest named “Wittleben.” When the police search the train he is traveling on, Wittkowski jumps off and reaches the village of Seebrücken, where he finds shelter in the rectory. The young priest Steiner is embroiled in a petty war with the local Christmas-tree-ornament manufacturer Baumberger, the richest man in the village, because Baumberger is trying to seduce—or blackmail—the young locksmith’s widow, Mrs. Holzmann, who is heavily in debt to him, into having an affair. Wittkowski takes a liking to Mrs. Holzmann and her little son Peter, and, thanks to his training as a locksmith, is also a great help to her in the workshop. He decides to put his skills to work for her benefit and first steals the promissory note from Baumberger’s safe, leaving the money inside untouched. The religious villagers take this as a miracle, and attendance at Steiner’s services, which Baumberger had previously kept empty, quickly picks up again. Meanwhile, Steiner gradually realizes that “Pastor Wittleben” is actually the fugitive Wittkowski. But instead of immediately turning him in to the police, he secretly swaps Wittkowski’s burglary tools for prayer books and gives him the chance to turn himself in. Wittkowski is willing to accept, but first he still has one last trick to play on Baumberger, since the latter will not give up on his pursuit of Mrs. Holzmann: he puts Baumberger in a situation from which he cannot talk his way out without revealing his true intentions, settling the matter once and for all. But a subsequent misunderstanding leads Wittkowski to flee from Steiner and return to the city to his friend and accomplice Schmiedel and Schmiedel’s girlfriend. He agrees to pull another job with them; however, it turns out that the two of them were the ones who framed Wittkowski for the last burglary. They then try to use Wittkowski as a scapegoat again, and he is promptly caught at the scene of the crime. But the prayer books in his tool case turn the case completely around, this time for the better. With Pastor Steiner’s help, Wittkowski leaves prison a free man and, together with him, gets rid of the last remnants of his criminal life before beginning a new, honest life in Seebrücken.