Günter Meisner Movies

Wim Wenders revisits his masterpiece Der Himmel Uber Berlin in this film which picks up several years after the original left off. Cassiel (Otto Sander) is an angel who watches over the lives of the people of recently reunified Berlin with Raphaella (Nastassja Kinski). Damiel (Bruno Ganz), Cassiel's former partner who opted to return to the land of the living in the first film, now lives happily as a pizza chef with the woman he loved and married, circus performer Marion (Solveig Dommartin). While angels are forbidden to directly intervene in the lives of humans, Cassiel impulsively breaks this rule when a little girl falls from the balcony of an apartment block, and he swoops down to catch her. Suddenly made flesh and blood, Cassiel has earned the enmity of Emit Flesti (Willem Dafoe), a sort of overseer of the angels on the physical plane. Emit makes it his business to make things difficult for Cassiel now that he's living among the humans, and after a period of alcoholism and imprisonment, Cassiel finds himself working for gangster Tony Baker (Horst Buchholz), who distributes weapons and pornography on the black market. However, Cassiel has a change of heart and decides to destroy Tony's stockpile in a bid to make the world a better place. Peter Falk, who played himself in Der Himmel Uber Berlin, makes a return appearance when a gallery shows the sketches that he was making in the first film; rock singer Lou Reed and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev also appear as themselves. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Although the Maori have fared perhaps the best of all the indigenous peoples who have had their homeland overrun by Europeans, many of their ancient cultural artifacts were stolen in the early years of colonization and were shipped all over the world. In this story, an old Maori woman remembers the story of some carvings which were stolen in this fashion and is campaigning for them to be returned. At the same time, a Maori writer visiting Berlin feels something which makes him feels that his ancestors are present with him in the German city. He eventually tracks down the source of these feelings in the form of the carvings, which are being kept in a museum. The writer and his uncle, who is also in the city, band together with others to liberate the carvings and return these beacons for the ancestral spirits to their proper home. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Adapted from a true story, West German investigative journalist Gunther Wallraff (Jurgen Prochnow) decides to fight sleaze with sleaze as he goes undercover at a tabloid newspaper to dig up the dirt on the paper's own unethical practices. Rising to the top of the hierarchy by working at the kind of journalism he despises, Wallraff soon discovers that the paper is waging a campaign against his true-life self; he must fight to emerge with his identity intact. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Not surprisingly, the Spanish Estacion Central takes place in large part in a busy railroad terminal. Here is where a woman is murdered, and here is where Barcelonan photographer Feodor Atkine happens to snap a picture of the dirty deed. It would be a simple matter for the photographer to turn his evidence over to the police. Unfortunately, he has retained too many ties to too many underworld figures, and thus can't go to the cops without being suspected of the murder himself. There are several neat Hitchcock-like touches to be found in Estacion Central, most of them in the pulse-racing closing scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Father Joseph Mohr (Steve Bond) comes to stay with the family of Franz Guber (Cyrus Elias) in this romantic costume drama. The region is plagued by the evil Baron Von Seidl (David Warner) who delights in persecuting everyone including his own family. Magdalena (Nastassja Kinski) works at the local inn and falls in love with the unavailable Father Mohr. Janza (Franco Nero) is the insurgent who tries to incite a revolution against the despotic Baron. This drama of unrequited love contains nudity. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Stylistically compelling, morally ambiguous, and profoundly unsettling, this Spanish psychodrama from writer-director Agustin Villaronga stands beside Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo as one of cinema's most unflinching depictions of human depravity. The story opens in post-WWII Catalonia as former Nazi death camp "doctor" Klaus (Gunter Meisner) consummates his torture-murder of a young man by hurling himself from the roof of his house; this act, motivated either by a sudden attack of conscience or by some form of sexual mania, leaves him paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe on his own. We soon find Klaus lying prone in an archaic iron lung, attended by his stern wife Griselda (Marisa Paredes) and young daughter Rena (Gisela Echevarria). When they become unable (or, in his wife's case, unwilling) to look after him, Griselda hires handsome young nurse Angelo (David Sust), unaware that the young man is one of Klaus' former victims, who has maintained a detailed dossier on the "doctor" and his countless unspeakable atrocities. Thus begins a perverse and surreal manipulation of master/servant roles between the immobile Klaus and his equally demented attendant, as the young man attempts to recreate the nightmare world of the camps, even procuring more young victims for his former tormentor's amusement. Though it could be asserted that the stylistically accomplished Villaronga has made a passionate artistic statement about mankind's capacity for unspeakable atrocities, his film may be construed as being one of those horrors in itself. At any rate, Tras el Cristal is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

In the final episode of the seven-part, eighteen-hour miniseries The Winds of War, Ambassador-at-large "Pug" Henry (Robert Mitchum) represents the US in a series of conferences with the intansigent Russian premier Josef Stalin (Anatoly Chauginian). Dallying briefly with his erstwhile British sweetheart Pamela Tudsbury (Victoria Tennant), Pug stays in Moscow long enough to witness the attempted Nazi invasion. Meanwhile, Pug's daughter-in-law Natalie (Ali McGraw) and her Uncle Aaron (John Houseman) are among the Jewish refugees being smuggled into Palestine. And back in the Western Hemisphere, Pug's sons Byron (Jan-Michael Vincent) and Warren (David Dukes) are swept up in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Winds of War was adapted by Herman Wouk from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the fifth episode of the seven-part, eighteen-hour miniseries The Winds of War, US Naval Commander "Pug" Henry (Robert Mitchum) continues acting as President Roosevelt's emissary of peace in war-torn Europe, even as Hitler (Gunter Meisner) secretly prepares to double-cross Stalin (Anatoly Chaguinian) by invading the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Henry's neglected wife Rhoda (Polly Bergen) has a fling with handsome Palmer Kirby (Peter Graves). And in neutral Portugal, Pug's son Byron (Jan-Michael Vincent) proposes marriage to the much-older Natalie Jastrow (Ali McGraw), whose Jewish faith may well be an obstacle to the couple's safety in future episodes. The Winds of War was adapted by Herman Wouk from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the second episode of the seven-part, eighteen-hour miniseries The Winds of War, several of the characters introduced in part one are swept up in the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland. Among these are Byron Henry (Jan-Michael Vincent), Natalie Jastrow (Ali McGraw) and Leslie Slote (David Dukes), who in true Casablanca fashion must realize that the problems of three little people aren't worth a hill of beans in this crazy world--especially after witnessing the Nazi slaughter of a Polish refugee caravan. Back in the US, Byron's father, Naval Commander Victor "Pug" Henry (Robert Mitchum) is the recipient of personal, highly top-secret orders from President Roosevelt (Ralph Bellamy) himself--orders which may well determine the fate of the free world. The Winds of War was adapted by Herman Wouk from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Kabe (Marius Mueller-Westernhagen) lives with his wife Andrea (Patricia von Miseroni) in East Germany in an apartment that backs right up to the Berlin Wall. The Wall is only one of many confining aspects of life that drive Kabe nuts -- when he sees these barriers, he just has to cross them. Inevitably, he starts trying to jump over the wall again and again and is thrown first into a mental institution and then into jail for his repeated efforts -- which do, in the end pay off. It turns out he gets a reprieve when he is exchanged for some others on the opposite side of that wall in a deal between the East and West German governments, and lo and behold, Kabe is now in West Germany. Unfortunately, he is no happier looking at the wall from that perspective either. After all, his wife is on the other side -- and now what is he to do? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

As indicated by its title, this British miniseries concentrated on the years between the two world wars, when the eminent Winston Churchill (Robert Hardy) was politically out of favor in his own country. Acutely aware of the danger looming in a newly re-armed Germany, Churchill vainly tried to warn his fellow Britishers that Hitler was not a man to be trusted. It was only after the benighted PM Neville Chamberlain (Eric Porter) saw the promise of "Peace in Our Time" blow up in his face that Churchill was ensconced in his proper position as leader of his nation. First telecast in the U.K. in 1981, Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years aired in the U.S. two years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In mid-1978, the cult fantasy guru and comic book illustrator Bill Richert -- after months directing Jeff Bridges and Belinda Bauer in the scattergun carnival of a political satire, Winter Kills -- faced a real head-scratcher. With Winter yet to be completed, Richert's backer, Avco-Embassy, lopped off all funding and suspended production indefinitely. Projectless, Richert spun around, picked up an unproduced feature script by drive-in director Larry Cohen (Q, It's Alive!), and somehow found the cash to churn out a second piece of eccentricity with Bridges and Bauer in the leads, this one for Columbia Pictures -- hoping he could use the latter's earnings to polish off Winter. Thus began a very shaky history over the next 30 years for a little film originally called The American Success Company. This ghost of a picture bombed at the box office in 1979, was later reedited twice by Richert under distinct titles (first as American Success in 1981 and then as Success in 1983), and received limited theatrical distribution. It has since fallen through the cracks of movie history, never receiving official distribution on home video but popping up in bootleg versions under the titles Good as Gold and The Ringer. The movie tells the story of Harry Flowers (Bridges), a Milquetoast employee of a Munich-based credit card company, AmSucCo (did AmEx raise any eyebrows at that?), married to the daughter (Bauer) of his slightly tyrannical boss (Ned Beatty). Flowers allows himself to be shoved around and coddled by everyone, until he suddenly decides to slip into an assumed identity -- that of a gruff, bull-by-the-horns modern-day prince, determined to "rescue himself" from wimpdom by learning sexual aggression from a prostitute (Bianca Jagger) and ultimately wresting millions from the hand that feeds him. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Lee Marvin plays a CIA agent who lures a Soviet biological warfare expert aboard a European train in the hopes of murdering the expert, thus eliminating a world threat. Things go awry when the train is caught in an avalanche. ~ All Movie Guide