Ein Mann im schönsten Alter

Richard Mertens (Karl Michael Vogler) is a mann in the best years of his life. He has achieved everything that he ever wanted. He is the editor-in-chief for a well known magazine, is very good looking and lives the life of the well to do. His inner life and his material wealth are completely in balance. He is loved... and not only by his wife. Not! Behind the façade of cultivated wealth, reality looks very grimm. Mertens has only respect for his very noble and always understanding wife, and more than often he is jealous of her because Lucy (Françoise Prevost) doesn't depend on him. She was born and raised rich. She can have every object of luxury she wants and she does not understand why her husband has fought every step of his career to get where he is now. The natural self-assurance of Lucy stands between the couple. How different is the relation between Mertens and his colleague Eva (Pascale Audret) from Accounting. Richard is in love with her as only a man of his age can. He dreams of re-doing his life again with her at his side. Eva has the courage to dream that such a life can be possible. She is not interested in money, wealth or power. She only wants to have a normal decent life with him. And that troubles him. He thinks that he has to gain more wealth and power if he wants to keep Eva in his life. To achieve this goal, Mertens goes to court and sues his publisher and friend Alfred von Xanten (Hans Coninenberg) over patent rights. Mertens is so sure that he is going to win that he looses all perspective of reality and in the end... humanity. But misfortune hits very hard when one day on his way to the trial, his car is broken into and the papers proving his rights are stolen. What was a sure win is now turning into a loss. His whole life is turning up side down. People are avoiding him and what he feared the most, loosing the love of Eva, finally happened. Although Eva doesn't love him anymore, she is willing to testify in court that she has seen the papers before they were stolen. The court accepts and grants Mertens all the patent rights of his friend the publisher making him a very wealthy mann. Mertens is now the equal to his wife Lucy but being able to love the women of his life Eva he has lost. The only company he has is Brigitte (Marisa Mell), a women working in a local bar and expert in helping lost causes, she stays with him. They know that they are not in love but they are helping each other in difficult times at a price. (Illustrierte Film-Bühne n° 6705)