The golden plague is greed, and American consumerism appears to be its fuel — in the form of occupying military troops with cash to burn on entertainment — in John Brahm’s Die goldene Pest (US: The Golden Plague). Having directed a half-dozen or so early American noirs, Brahm returned to his native Germany, now riven by the Cold War, and began the next phase of his career with this film depicting a town’s dangerous descent into materialism and depravity, similar to Phil Karlson’s The Phenix City Story (1955). Sergeant Richard Hartwig (Ivan Desny) returns to his hometown of Dossental to visit old flame Franziska Hellmer (Gertrud Kückelmann) only to discover that Franziska’s brother Karl (Karlheinz Böhm) has taken on debt to transform the town into a den of hedonism to entertain the Allied occupying military forces. (Karl’s bizarre nightclub fare includes drag queens, mud wrestling, even skimpily dressed girls pedaling bikes on a merry-go-round.) Concerned that Karl’s indebtedness is involving him in criminal activity, Hartwig and Franziska intervene. While noir atmospherics are limited to a handful of scenes in narrow alleys and cobblestone streets, the final act builds to a crescendo of chaos and excitement and a strong helping of poetic justice involving fire hoses.