At the age of 32, a prolific Wim Wenders forays into adapting Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley story to the celluloid screen in his seventh feature, THE AMERICAN FRIEND receives a Cannes main competition entry and stars Dennis Hopper as the self-exile middle-aged Tom Ripley in a cowboy hat living inside a big mansion on his ownsome in Hamburg, partakes in art forgery racket. Nicholas Ray plays a presumedly dead painter Derwatt, sometimes wears an eye-patch, cynically tossing off new works for Ripley to sell in the auction house.It is where, Ripley meets Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz in his big screen breakout role), a painter framer and art restorer, who is diagnosed with a rare blood disease, may or may not be pushing up daisies any day sooner, Jonathan unceremoniously brushes aside Ripley with a curt "I've heard of you" (a , the slight triggers the latter's retaliation (typically Ripley!), by disseminating rumors about the former's blood condition to be fatal, and recommends Jonathan when a French gangster Raoul Minot (Blain) needs a candidate with a clean slate as a hitman. Rebuffing Minot's offer at first, Jonathan naively agrees to have another medical checkup in a Parisian hospital organized by Minot, beyond any doubt, no one would believe that its pessimistic outcome is not doctored by Minot but Jonathan himself, tempted to earn some fast money for his wife Marianne (Kreuzer) and their son Daniel (Dedecke) when he will be gone, he commits his first sortie (conveniently) inside a Paris metro station (albeit drolly clumsy) before heading back to Hamburg. However, an improbable freemasonry between Ripley and Jonathan burgeons in spite of their prima facie disfavor, Wenders fidgets with multifarious artifacts to smooth the transition, objects like golden foil, zoetrope, stereopticon, gyroscope, Polaroid, etc. suffuse the faintly insipid narrative with its ethos-signalling vim and melancholia, which writs large in Ripley's solitary existence, e.g. his monologue "There is nothing to fear but fear itself" is manifested not once but twice, infused with lurid chromatic choices in full bloom (red, blue, leaden-gray and green are primal pointers to the mood-scape). Their bond veers into partners-in-crime when Jonathan nearly botches a second mission on a train from Munich to Hamburg if not for Ripley's sudden succor, and Ripley's confession as the rumormonger, apparently doesn't stir Jonathan's ill-feelings, only leads to a final betrayal after they eliminate their common assailants, that halts with an ironic outcome when mortality suddenly beckons. Less a genre practitioner than an arch stylist, Wenders meanders through the discomfiting drama with an Edward Hopper-esque commitment to its milieu and surroundings, tonally, it bewitchingly tallies with Tom Ripley's existential crisis which vaguely stoked by a smack of homoerotic impulse, and Jonathan's thrill-inflected imprudence. A brooding Bruno Ganz eloquently betrays an enthralling temperament which is buried under Jonathan's pedestrian appearance, and is affectively unpredictable and sympathetic in the eyes of this beholder. Dennis Hopper has a less prominent screen-time but it is an eye-pleasing experience (on the condition that if we could overlook his unsavory wig during the scenes of the second mission) to watch him not in his trademark menacing mode, but registers something more self-revealing. Lisa Kreuzer, is hindered by a stereotyped suspicious wife role, must put on a strong face against all odds, yet plumbing into a feminine mindset is not Wenders' forte.A cineaste's lollapalooza, with many an auteur taking on an acting gig (Nicolas Ray, Samuel Fuller, Daniel Schmid, Jean Eustache, not to mention actor/director hyphenates Hopper and Blain), THE AMERICAN FRIEND is a testament that Wenders' faculty is on the verge of its full maturity, not a conventionally cut-throat crime thriller but a nostalgic scenester recapitulating its zeitgeist with a splash of idiosyncrasy and quaintness.

A quiet man who has a vary rare blood disease and is an expert in a certain painters oil paintings for a auction house. He owns and works in a frame shop gets involved with a man he despises, a collector who sells paintings. The quiet man moves from a stable life to a life of excitement and danger. Directed by Wim Wenders a movie that is exciting and brilliant. Bruno Ganz and Dennis Hopper are excellent together. This CANNES Film Festival Selection of 1977. This psychological thriller is equal to Alfred Hitchcock and Samuel Fuller and is gripping.

The main reviewer identifies a flaw in the script. "Didn't the afflicted character ever hear of life insurance." The reviewer should know and I am sure the late great and lovely Pat Highsmith already knew, that one can't insure an existing condition. The insurance companies aren't that daft, or, at all. Perhaps there is an opening for Ripley to take exception to this and wreak his horrible revenge on the insurance establishment and their desperate commission hungry sputniks. He could play a bogus insurance salesman offering life cover to the terminally ill, fiddling the applications and medical data and ladling oodles of dosh into his bogus bank accounts when the punters pop their clogs.Imagine him joining a insurance company boiler room set-up and wreaking mayhem against scumbag sales people, their gutter crawling supervisors, sales prospects that give him a hard time on the telephone and cynical insurance company owners. I saw a later version of this with Malkovich playing the sociopath Ripley, the effete serial killer cad. Malkovich was born to play Ripley. Haven't seen this Hopper one. But look forward to comparing Malkovich with Hopper.

Jonathan Zimmermann, a picture framer in Hamburg has a terminal blood disease.Tom Ripley is an American art dealer dealing in forgeries.He wants to use Jonathan's condition to his advantage.He is introduced to a gangster who proposes to the dying man he should become a mob assassin.That way he could leave a lot of money to his wife and son after he is gone.After a little while he agrees to do it.Der amerikanische Freund (The American Friend) from 1977 is a film directed by Wim Wenders.It's loosely adapted from the novel Ripley's Game (1974) by Patricia Highsmith, which I haven't read.This movie is very good.Dennis Hopper does an amazing job as Tom Ripley with that cowboy hat.I am very worried of Mr. Hopper's condition.He is losing his battle with prostate cancer and he is saying goodbye to his friends.All we can do now is wait for a miracle.We can't overlook the performance of Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann.He plays the part of a dying man so well.Lisa Kreuzer does great work as his wife Marianne.Gerard Blain is great as the gangster Raoul Minot.Director legend Nicholas Ray is terrific as Derwatt.Screenwriter/director Samuel Fuller is brilliant as The American Mobster.The movie has some very fine moments.When Jonathan goes to the subway, following the man he should kill...It's all very intense.Or when Jonathan is supposed to do his second killing in a train and Ripley appears and does the deed in a toilet.Between all that violence the movie seems very beautiful.