I Was a Criminal

The Captain from Köpenick, also known as I Was a Criminal and Passport to Heaven, is a 1945 American comedy film directed by Richard Oswald and based upon the play The Captain of Köpenick by Carl Zuckmayer and Albright Joseph. The play was based on the true story of Wilhelm Voigt, a German ex-convict who masqueraded as a Prussian military officer in 1906 and became famous as the Captain of Köpenick. The Captain from Köpenick was Oswald's second film version of the story; the first was a 1931 German film also called The Captain from Köpenick. In the intervening years Oswald had fled Nazi Germany for France, then the United States; this was his first American film. It was completed in 1941, but due to difficulty finding a distributor, it was not released until 1945.