It is the year 1933. Europe stands on the brink, and in London, filming is underway for a melodrama called "Praterveilchen." The equally temperamental and narcissistic director Friedrich Bergmann, an Austrian Jew, struggles with the superficiality of his industry and suffers from the political developments in his homeland. Yet hardly anyone pays attention to Bergmann's warnings. Christopher Isherwood impressively captures the apathetic mood in early Hitler-era England in this novel, which connects to his perhaps most famous work "Goodbye to Berlin," and dissects the amoral tendencies of the film business with biting irony.