Welt am Draht [1974]

Country of Origin: West Germany
Date(s) of Broadcast: 14 October 1974 - 16 October 1974
Number of Seasons: 1
Total Number of Episodes: 2
Average Episode Running Times: 105 mins
Format: colour     16mm
Sound: mono

PRODUCTION
Production Company: Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Producers: Peter Märthesheimer, Alexander Wesemann
Production Manager: Fred Ilgner

SCRIPT
Script: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Fritz Müller-Scherz
Novel: Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye

DIRECTION
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Assistant Directors: Renate Leiffer, Fritz Müller-Scherz

PHOTOGRAPHY
Director of Photography: Michael Ballhaus, Ulrich Prinz

EDITING AND POST PRODUCTION
Editors: Ursula Elles, Marie Anne Gerhardt

MUSIC
Music: Gottfried Hüngsberg

SOUND
Recording Directors: Hans D. Adenacker, Marcel Mossotti, Wolfgang von der Ruhr
Sound: Hans Pampuch, Ernst Thomas

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Make Up: Norbert Gerwin, Rosemarie Schönartz
Costume Designer: Gabriele Pillon

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Production Designers: Horst Giese, Walter Koch, Kurt Raab

LOCATIONS
Locations: Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany; Munich, Bavaria, Germany; Paris, France

CAST
Klaus Löwitsch [Fred Stiller]
Barbara Valentin [Gloria Fromm]
Kurt Raab [Mark Holm]
Mascha Rabben [Eva Vollmer]
Adrian Hoven [Professor Henry Vollmer]
Karl Heinz Vosgerau [Herbert Siskins]
Wolfgang Schenck [Franz Hahn]
Günter Lamprecht [Fritz Walfang]
Ulli Lommel [Rupp the Journalist]
Ingrid Caven [Uschi the journalist]
Margit Carstensen [Maya Schmidt-Gentner]
Ivan Desny [Guenther Lause]
Peter Chatel [Secretary of State Hirse]
Heinz Meier [Secretary of State Von Weinlaub]
Eddie Constantine [man in Rolls Royce]
Joachim Hansen [Hans Edelkern]
Rainer Hauer [Inspector Lehner]
Karl Scheydt [Inspector Stuhlfahrt]
Gottfried John [Einstein]
Rainer Langhans [Rainer, the waiter at party]
Rudolf Lenz [Hartmann]
Rudolf Waldemar Brem, Peter Kern [hospital orderlies]
Corinna Brocher, Doris Mattes, Peter Moland [employees]
Maryse Dellanoy [waitress at cafe]
Peter Gauke [informer]
El Hedi ben Salem, Ernst Küsters [bodyguards]
Elma Karlowa [cafeteria owner]
Dora Karras-Frank [victim of assault on Stiller]
Christine Kaufmann, Magdalena Montezuma, Werner Schroeter [party guests]
Bruce Low [doctor]
Christiane Maybach [woman at bar]
Lilo Pempeit [data typist]
Karsten Peters [guide at newspaper editors]
Solange Pradel [singer]
Katrin Schaake [computer lab assistant]
Walter Sedlmayr [janitor]

In the near future, a team of researchers are using the powerful supercomputer Simulacron-1 to create an extremely detailed and realistic virtual reality full of 'people' who are in fact programs that can be terminated at the whim of the scientists. But when project leader Henry Vollmer dies, his successor, Dr Fred Stiller, notices that something is not right in the institute. When a close friend suddenly vanishes in the middle of a conversation and no-one can ever remember seeing him, Stiller begins to wonder if anything around him is real at all and comes to believe that maybe he's just one of Simulacron-1's programs...

1974
October
14: West Germany - Episode 1 first television broadcast
16: West Germany - Episode 2 first television broadcast

World on Wires
World on a Wire

SEE ALSO
The Matrix [1999]
The Thirteenth Floor [1999]

books into film, computers, virtual reality, scientists

Last Updated: 6 March, 2007