Given the style’s origins in German Expressionism, one could argue that film noir was born in Germany and transplanted to Hollywood by its German originators like Lang, Siodmak, Ulmer, and others who left behind a nation in the grips of the Third Reich. Even in spite of this hollowing out of German cinema, however, postwar Germany would go on to make a noteworthy contribution to noir, especially to the latter half of the cycle, with films like Louis Agotay’s Falschmünzer am Werk (US: Fall 7-9), in which a trio of men join forces to take down a counterfeit smuggling syndicate: Police Inspector Braun (Paul Klinger), newspaper reporter Conny Hauser (Walter Giller), and a Parisian police detective named Paillard (Paul Dahlke). When the counterfeit production is traced to a garage in Paris belonging to Louis Kertesz (Harald Paulsen), the detectives begin closing in just in time to discover Kertesz’s corpse. The case is far from closed, however, as the smuggling continues, leading the investigation to the streets and alleys of Hamburg. Lenore Aubert plays Madame Winter, a writer who falls for Braun along the way, and Emil Ferstl’s lively score pumps energy and tension into the action sequences, which include police chases across nocturnal rooftops and footbridges, rendezvous in the middle of the woods, kidnappings at gunpoint, violent apprehensions in quiet cafes, and Braun’s tailing of the gang as they smuggle bills inside boxes of empty books on a commercial flight, then into the city, then into a trap. Note: Try not to laugh when the largest mobile phone you’ve ever seen in your life appears on screen.