Friedemann Bach

In the style of Gogol's Inspector General: When a traveling salesman arrives in the car of a government official, the powers that be of a small town think he's the auditor and try to throw him off the track about their disorderly finances.

In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.

It begins with a Tannhäuser performance and ends with the premiere of The Tales of Hoffmann. In between a young ingénue cast in her first big role, the Hoffmann rehearsals, the theatre director and his stage director exchanging cynicisms, a budding love affair. Gründgens at his most repulsive, trying to woo both lovers. And a hair-raising finale. Add to this some snappy dialogue and "pre-code" scenes that make you sit up and stare.

An anti-British propaganda film from Nazi Germany which depicts the life of the South African politician Paul Kruger and his eventual defeat by the British during the Boer War.

In 1957 Gustaf Gründgens staged a new production of Goethe's Faust in which he once again played Mephisto, a part he had played since 1932. The brilliant production was a huge success and ran for a couple of years. In 1959 Peter Gorski captured the performance on film in his directorial film debut. Basically it is a registration of the production, but Gorksi did manage to accentuate the details of the acting by using enough medium and close-up shots which give a view on the acting you normally would not able to see in a theater.

As a gang of classy jewel thieves hop from one European country to another, an engineer rescues a woman from their clutches.

Sylvia, the daughter of the pastor Kelvil, is lectrice to Lady Patricia and gets to know the young Lord Harford. They love one another, but their class differences forbid marriage. There's a sharp argument with the father, who afterwards wants to send the young lord abroad. Then Sylvia is offered money to disappear, unaware that she's already pregnant. 18 years later: Sylvia raised her son on her own as best she could. He is now known as Lord Harford, who, besides having the title Lord Illingworth, also has inherited his father's total estate and has now returned from India. Unaware of their identities, the father and son get to know one another; get into a fight; and the young man challenges the father to a duel. In order to prevent that from happening, the mother must now tell each of them the truth about their identities. The film is based on the theatre piece of the same name by Oscar Wilde.

Vienna in the beginning of the twentieth century. Cavalry Lieutenant Fritz Lobheimer is about to end his affair with Baroness Eggerdorff when he meets the young Christine, the daughter of an opera violinist. Baron Eggerdorff however soon hears of his past misfortune...

When linguistics professor Henry Higgins boasts that he can pass off Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a princess with only six months' training, Colonel George Pickering takes him up on the bet. Eliza moves into Higgins's home and begins her rigorous training after the professor comes to a financial agreement with her dustman father, Alfred. But the plucky young woman is not the only one undergoing a transformation.

The likeable and carefree Grand Duke of Abacco is in dire straits. There is no money left to service the State’s debt; the main creditor is looking forward to expropriating the entire Duchy. The marriage with Olga, Grand Duchess of Russia, would solve everything, but a crucial letter of hers about the engagement has been stolen. Besides, a bunch of revolutionaries and a dubious businessman have other plans regarding the Grand Duke. With the intrusion of adventurer Philipp Collins into the Grand Duke’s affairs, a series of frantic chases, plots and counter-plots begins…

Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1933, when the Nazis came into power, until 1945, when the Third Reich collapsed. (A sequel to From Caligari to Hitler, 2015.)

The political advisor to the French emperor Napoleon, and the Austrian emperor Franz I, arrange a marriage between Napoleon and the Austrian archduchess Marie-Luise in order to prevent another war.

The two aspiring actresses Jeanette and Mimi are waiting for their big chance. But the real breakthrough is slow in coming. Jeanette especially desperately needs a big success, since her friend, the journalist Stephan, is about to lose his job. When the two have their chance to take a ride in a posh car during a shooting, Jeanette slams on the throttle and the two friends take off. Their aimless journey takes them to a fashionable winter sports’ hotel, where Jeanette reserves a name under “The Countess of Monte Christo”. Everything’s going dandy; no one suspects a thing. That is, until two impostors, Rumowski and “The Baron” take residence in the same hotel.

An engineer is hired to plan and oversee the construction of a undersea tunnel between Europe and the US. However, certain interests don't want to see the tunnel built and use every means at their disposal, including sabotage and murder, to stop its construction. French-language version of the 1933 German DER TUNNEL, q.v.

Paris, 1830: Jean-Gaspard Debureau performs on the stage and delights his audience with song, wit and charm. He is, however, very unpopular with King Charles X, who is the target of much of Debureau's scornful jests. That would be a somewhat tolerable situation if it weren't for the fact that Debureau has fallen for a countess, who happens to be the King's mistress.