This soggy picture allows the disintegration of a human being to be almost as dull as the way he earns his living -- and that is appalling.

A pivotal work in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's career because it was the first film he made after meeting and befriending his muse Douglas Sirk in 1971.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder has a genius for detailing the pain of suppressed emotional states, and even at its most achingly deliberate, his style in dealing with the petit bourgeois mentality is a source of endless fascination.

This film marks the beginning of Fassbinder's notable stylizations of wicked social satire.