A tale of wealthy youth in post-WWII Copenhagen.

A woman, Ilse Brehmer, finds the body of a dead man, a journalist. He has been murdered, and later when the body turns up in the harbor, the woman denies everything, even though witnesses has seen her nearby the crime scene. She simply can’t remember anything, but the detective on the case, Mørck, knows how to smell a lie and soon start to unravel this bloody mess.

The late 1930s. A young enemployed, unskilled worker walks through the streets of Copenhagen, sustaining himself partly on the dole and free soup-kitchen meals and partly on day-dreams. He spends time at a cemetry studying headstone inscriptions. Mild-mannered and of poetic bent, he understands little of an intellectual friend's advice and shies away from the love of a woman who shares her bed with him.

1950 film by Bodil Ipsen, Lau Lauritzen