Tag Archives: german

Fanatic / Die! Die! My Darling! (1965) Silvio Narizzano, Tallulah Bankhead, Stefanie Powers, Peter Vaughan, Horror, Thriller

Fanatic aka Die! Die! My Darling! (1965)
Patricia Carroll arrives in London to get married with her fiancé Alan Glentower. However, the stubborn Pat decides to pay a visit in the country to Mrs. Trefoile, the mother of her former fiancé Stephen, who died in a car accident. Once there, the religious fanatic Mrs. Trefoile insists to Pat to stay overnight to go to the mass on the next morning.
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Woman Times Seven (1967) Vittorio De Sica, Shirley MacLaine, Elspeth March, Peter Sellers, Comedy, Drama

Woman Times Seven (Vittorio de Sica, 1967)
Seven mini-stories of adultery: “Funeral Possession,” a wayward widow at her husband’s funeral; “Amateur Night,” angry wife becomes streetwalker out of revenge; “Two Against One,” seemingly prudish girl turns out otherwise; “Super Simone,” wife vainly attempts to divert her over-engrossed writer husband; “At the Opera,” a battle over a supposedly exclusive dress; “Suicides,” a death pact; “Snow,” would-be suitor is actually a private detective hired by jealous husband.
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Fluchtweg St. Pauli – Großalarm für die Davidswache / Hot Traces of St. Pauli (1971) Wolfgang Staudte, Horst Frank, Christiane Krüger, Heinz Reincke, Thriller

hot-traces-of-st-pauli-1971
The dangerous violent criminal Willy Jensen flees from a prison in Hamburg and seeks shelter at his brother Heinz’ apartment. Heinz, an honest taxi-driver, believes in his innocence and helps him – until Willy kills another man in a robbery. After an argument Willy takes his wife Vera, who now lives with Heinz, as hostage on his further flight from the police.
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Wiener Blut / Viennese Spirit (1942) Willi Forst, Willy Fritsch, Maria Holst, Hans Moser, Comedy, Music

wiener-blut-aka-viennese-spirit-1942
Willy Forst of course is famous for looking back on the ‘old Vienna’ in a mixture of nostalgia and gentle irony in his films, but “Wiener Blut” may be the one which most highlights the question of what makes the ‘true’ Viennese style. We get a first answer right at the beginning, when Forst himself masqueraded as a medieval alchemist mixes the ingredients for the brew of this film, which are ‘humour’, ‘frivolity’, ‘heart’, ‘history’ and most of all, ‘music’. And the film gets this mixture right.
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The Friend of Friends / Die Freunde der Freunde (2002) Dominik Graf, Matthias Schweighöfer, Sabine Timoteo, Florian Stetter, Drama, Romance

die-freunde-der-freunde-2002
Set in the boarding school milieu, the film depicts the meeting of shy Gregor and mysterious Billie. Billie has a son, her husband is in jail. Arthur, Gregor’s friend, is a serial Lothario, forever unfaithful to his girlfriend Pia. Both Arthur and Billie have had a similar mystical experience related to someone’s death.
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Matto regiert / Madness Rules (1947) Leopold Lindtberg, Heinrich Gretler, Heinz Woester, Friedrich Braun, Crime, Drama

matto-regiert-1947
If any one man is responsible for the rejuvenation of the postwar Swiss film industry, that man was director Leopold Lindtberg. Matto Regiert (Madness Rules) was co-adapted for the screen by Lindtberg from a novel by Friedrich Glauser. Heinrich Gretler stars as Police Constable Studer, the hero of several of Glauser’s most popular works.
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