The Tailor from Ulm

The Tailor from Ulm is a 1978 West German drama film directed by Edgar Reitz, of Heimat fame. It is the true story of a German pioneer aviator, Albrecht Berblinger, in the late 18th century. It was entered into the 11th Moscow International Film Festival. Plot The story begins in countryside near Vienna in 1791. The hero sees a runaway hot-air balloon with a distressed lady inside crying for help. He pursues it, never having seen such a thing before. The family look after him for a while in return for his part in the rescue and he reads a book concerning flight. He already has a fascination with birds and how they fly. Through the family, the Morettis from Italy, he meets an existing experimenter in human flight, Irma Moretti's fiancé, Jakob von Degen, and is invited to a public demonstration of his flying machine. The story then jumps two years, to Ulm where Albrecht works as a tailor. He and his new wife, appropriately plain for his station in life, are visited by the dashing Herr Degen, now married to the beautiful Irma whom Albrecht clearly likes. Their visit is brief as he is en route to the Champs de Mars in Paris to demonstrate his flying machine, which is pulled behind his coach on a specially designed cart. Albrecht is in a tavern one evening when a man, Kaspar Fesslen, is thrown out for causing a disturbance by leafleting in the room. The leaflets say he has returned from Paris where he demonstrated a flying machine. Gossip describes him as a Jacobin sent to incite rebellion.