Und das am Montagmorgen (1959)

Alois Kessel is exceptionally diligent in his profession; nothing matters more to him than doing perfect, precise work. Even at weekends, the bespectacled bank branch manager is anything but a man of leisure: instead, he takes work home, preparing annual balance sheets and completing tax returns. Once again, he has spent the entire Sunday night poring over figures and trends. Now it is Monday morning, and he has to go back to the office. But when he gets stuck in traffic on the way in and then finds his usual parking space occupied, Kessel begins to wonder, “What’s the point of all this?” He feels like a hamster on a wheel, and a deep inner urge tells him he ought to break free. Right now. And so, like an inner stab, the impulse leads him, as he passes a school, to drive to the nearest toy shop and practically buy it out. Over a good alcoholic drink and with the toys, Alois tries to reclaim the childhood and carefree spirit he lost, playing as he did forty years ago. Before long, this otherwise meticulous, order-loving model employee leaves everyone else—the staff and even the police—with the impression that he must have gone mad somehow. Kessel’s background is investigated, and the balance sheets he prepared are checked to see whether he might have embezzled any of the bank’s money. Finally, his mental state is to be assessed as well. A beautiful expert, Dr. Delia Mond, takes on the task. Kessel already knows her, and he has always been attracted to her. Kessel decides it is time to change his life from the ground up. Delia concludes that Kessel suffers from a compulsion to tell nothing but the truth. And that is exactly what he does when he confesses his love to Delia. An even more skilled expert is brought in. Professor Groß hypnotizes Alois, firmly believing that this will reset everything and turn the supposedly “mad” Alois Kessel back into the meticulous, conventional bank employee he used to be. On Tuesday morning, he really is back to his “old self”—but a wedding ring on his finger and a mischievous smile on his face prove that the now-married-to-Delia Kessel must have changed after all.