Marianne (Birgit Doll) is driven from her father’s home when she is impregnated by Alfred (Hanno Poeschi), a vagabond loafer who abandons her after he has his fun. She goes to Vienna and takes a job in a strip club to provide for herself and her baby. Her father discovers his daughter’s tawdry vocation when he and his buddies go to the club for a night of leering and drinking. Marianne later has no choice but to go back to the butcher to whom her father promised her in marriage before she fell for Alfred. The story is taken from a play by Oedoen Von Horath and is directed with flair by Maximilian Schell.Read More »
Quote: “The abstraction of the story and the concrete presence of the natural settings apprehended with a beautiful sense of the frame infuse a mythical dimension to this worthy successor of Jean Epstein’s Breton films.”
“This is Azimi’s third film in Brittany, he has already shot Les jours gris in 1973 in Dinan and Utopia in 1978 in Cap Fréhel. “Here everything overlaps: the sea, the sky, the flat orange of the sun, the clouds and the foam around the rocks, the salt. Only the island tears.” (auto-translated)Read More »
In 1880’s Italy, young Paulina must join a monastery to escape a doomed relationship with a married count. However, neither she, nor the count can just move.Read More »
During 1817-1823 the people of Venezuela fought for independence against the Spanish colonial army. General Boliviar tries to unify the rebel parties, but it’s hard since they differ in descent and race. But in a risky fight against a numerical superior army convoy he can convince the other leaders. Further on he’s the “Libertator”. He starts to call all men into his new army. His vision is to free not only Venezuela, but all American countries.Read More »
Quote: A quote from Bertolt Brecht ends this bitter and angry war film by Sam Peckinpah: “Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.” Peckinpah’s intense and belligerently non-commercial work, (based on the book by Willi Heinrich), is a World War II tale told from the German perspective, following a platoon of German soldiers in the Russia of 1943, when the German Wehrmacht forces had been decimated and the Germans were retreating along the Russian front. James Coburn is Steiner, a German corporal and recipient of the Iron Cross who feels that he owes his loyalty to his family and fellow soldiers and not to Hitler and the German war machine. But when a new commander, Captain Stransky (Maximillian Schell), takes over the platoon, Steiner and Stransky come into immediate conflict. Stransky is a career soldier, the complete opposite of Steiner, and a man who pledges himself heart and soul to Hitler and the war. But he envies Steiner for having been awarded an Iron Cross and deeply desires one himself. The problem is Stransky is a complete coward and recognizes that the only way he can be awarded an Iron Cross would be to get the bitter Steiner on his side.Read More »
After reading the diary of an elderly Jewish man who committed suicide, freelance journalist Peter Miller begins to investigate the alleged sighting of a former S.S. Captain who commanded a concentration camp during World War II. Miller eventually finds himself involved with the powerful organization of former S.S. members, called “O.D.E.S.S.A.”, as well as with the Israeli secret service.Read More »
Quote: The fifth directorial effort of German film star Maximillian Schell, Marlene is an unorthodox documentary of the legendary Marlene Dietrich. After years of resisting Schell’s entreaties, Dietrich finally agreed to participate in this project-but refused to appear on camera. Thus, a tape recording of a Dietrich-Schell interview is heard throughout, while the screen is filled with images of Marlene culled from stills, dramatic films (The Blue Angel, Shanghai Express et. al.) and newsreel footage.Read More »
Based on Ivan Turgeyev’s novella, Erste Liebe is about two young lovers in czarist Russia. One is a 21-year-old woman, the other a young man of sixteen. Things take a tragic turn as the girl (Dominique Sanda as Sanaida) falls in love with the boy’s father (Maximilian Schell). This film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 1970’s Academy Awards. Written by Reece LloydRead More »
The Day That Shook the World (Serbo-Croatian: Sarajevski atentat, lit. The Sarajevo Assassination) is a 1975 Czechoslovak-Yugoslav-German co-production film directed by Veljko Bulajić, starring Christopher Plummer and Florinda Bolkan. The film is about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo in 1914 and the immediate aftermath that led to the outbreak of World War I.Read More »
