Adrian Hoven Movies
Austrian actor/director Adrian Hoven made his earliest known screen appearance in 1947. For the next 35 years, he was seen in scores of European melodramas and horror films, as well as more prestigious efforts like the 15-hour TV miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz (1981). He has also served as producer for the 1967 films Necronomicon and Burn Witch Burn. In addition, Adrian Hoven has occasionally tried his hand at screenwriting under the nom de plume of Percy Parker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1981
Looping is an obscure German melodrama bearing traces of the silent classic Variety. Shelley Winters and Hans-Christian Blech star as Carmen and Johnny, two carnival performers. Business is bad, and their act is going nowhere. To lure in new audiences, Johnny hires a stripteaser named Tanja (Sydne Rome). From this point, it's only a matter of time before sex and jealousy leads to violence and general chaos. Filmed in 1981, Looping was first seen in America in 1982, when it was picked up for telecast by the Showtime cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shelley Winters, Hans-Christian Blech, (more)
- 1981
- R
German cabaret star Lili Marleen inspired a song that was extremely popular with the German soldiers during WW II. This war drama offers a fictionalized account of her story that begins in 1938 while she performs in a Zurich cabaret. It is her boyfriend, a Swiss Jew who also turns out to be a resistance fighter who pens her famous song. She sings it in Germany and it becomes a hit with the German troops. As a result, Hitler himself invites her to perform for him. This does not set well with the songwriter's powerful who, upon learning that Marleen has become a famed singer in Germany, seek to have her barred from Switzerland. This does not stop the songwriter from loving her though and desperate to see her one last time, he sneaks into Berlin for a tryst. Unfortuantely he is arrested and she gets blacklisted. They do not see each other again until after the war. By this time, their lives have changed considerably. This is not considered among the best of Fassbinder's best films. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hanna Schygulla, Giancarlo Giannini, (more)
- 1978
Having made as many films as he had years, at 31, Rainer Werner Fassbinder essayed a slightly different approach for his 32nd film, Despair. Here, he uses a witty screenplay written by the well-known playwright Tom Stoppard, based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Furthermore, the entire film, set in 1930s Germany, is in English. It received mixed reviews, if only because it is so unlike the director's other works. In the story, a Russian owner of a German chocolate-factory, whose business and marriage are both on the rocks, fantasizes about leaving his current life, and living another one. Indeed, he has delusions that he is somehow outside himself, watching himself live his life. So strong is his desire to alter his life that when he encounters a tramp while on a brief business trip, he imagines that the man looks exactly like him, decides to exchange identities with the tramp, and murders him. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Andréa Ferréol, (more)
- 1977
An out of work architect and a recently discharged military man meet at a critical moment in their lives. Each of them has been deprived of an occupation which gave meaning to their existence, and is left, instead, with a $15,000 severance check. Neither one handles the situation at all well. Bert, the architect, is thinking about giving up his apartment and studio, and tries his hand at an elaborate con-game. Thomas, a former military air-traffic controller, must take an elaborate series of exams before he can resume his profession as a civilian. Their girlfriends are not a steadying factor in their lives. When circumstances get in the way of their plans, they soon have only their friendship to rely on. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hans-Peter Hallwachs, Bernd Tauber, (more)
- 1977
A group of unsuspecting small-time crooks stumble on an apparently abandoned cache of heroin. This gives them big-time ideas, and, fueled by their renewed inspiration, they take their revenge on some old enemies. In the meantime, a big-time mob boss is keeping an eye on their activities. He has set them up for a really big fall and is only waiting to spring the trap. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marquard Bohm, Rolf Zacher, (more)
A housewife's slow descent into suicidal depression is chronicled in great detail in this movie by experimental film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margit Carstensen, Ulrich Faulhaber, (more)
- 1976
The anguish and suffering of a trio of outcasts is shown in this movie, based on Schatten der Engel Rainer Werner Fassbinder's controversial and possibly anti-Semitic stage play. A prostitute (Ingrid Craven) with a gift for eliciting confidences from her clients, her pimp (Fassbinder), and one of those clients, a Jewish real-estate speculator (Klaus Lowitsch), are caught up in an emotional hurricane which results in the deaths of the prostitute and her pimp. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ingrid Caven, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, (more)
This fast-paced black comedy by wunderkind director Rainer Werner Fassbinder follows the frantic efforts of a starving and confused writer, Walter Kranz (Kurt Raab) to beg, borrow or steal enough money to survive on, and at the same time make some sense of his confusing life. Unable to write enough to keep his publisher's royalty advances coming, he seeks out a woman he imagines is a prostitute and interviews her for material. He is also inspired to utter some poetry, which his brassy, outspoken wife identifies as coming from the famous homosexuality-advocating mystical German poet, Stefan George. This inspires Walter to take a closer look at the "gay scene," and he quickly becomes a sort of celebrity there. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kurt Raab, Helen Vita, (more)
- 1975
- PG
Telly Savalas, James Mason and Robert Culp join together to discover a hidden cache of $6 million in Nazi gold in this action caper retitled both Hitler's Gold and The Golden Heist. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Telly Savalas, Robert Culp, (more)
Faustrecht der Freiheit (Fox and His Friends) was one of the many films in the short, but prolific, career of German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Fassbinder plays Franz Biberkopf, a financially poor gay man who performs in a traveling circus as Fox the Talking Head. One day, he lucks into winning half a million marks in a lottery. This attracts the attention of numerous swindlers, including Eugen (Peter Chatel), who becomes Fox's lover, gets Fox to spend the money on Eugen, and then dumps Fox mercilessly once the money is gone. Unable to come to terms with how he has been used, and miserable at being in the same place he was before he won the money, Fox commits suicide. The cast is rounded out by El Hedi ben Salem and Brigitte Mira, the stars of Fassbinder's celebrated Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Chatel, (more)
Martha is a wealthy and totally self-involved woman -- so much so that on a trip during which her father dies, she does indeed cry, but only because she lost her purse. She marries a stranger who claims not to be at all attracted to her, and their wedding is only the beginning of a battle between them to determine who will get the upper hand over the other. Martha holds her own in this genuinely sado-masochistic relationship, until a tragic accident paralyzes her. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1972
- R
This British/German horrorama was the sequel to....drum roll please....Mark of the Devil (1970). The original film starred Herbert Lom as a "burning judge" preying upon accused witches in 18th century Austria. Anton Diffring substitutes for Herebert Lom in Part 2, but the basic premise remains intact. The overall tenor of the film is implicit in its alternate English-language title, Witches: Violated and Tortured to Death. Neither the original nor the sequel to Mark of the Devil had anything to do with the similarly titled 1985 Val Guest production. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1969
- R
Cult director Jesus Franco revived the sexy female detectives of the Red Lips Agency (first seen in 1960's Labios Rojos) for this entertainingly bizarre comedic thriller. Diana (Janine Reynaud) and Regina (Rossana Yanni) investigate the disappearances of several models and nightclub performers, leading them to mysterious artist Klaus Thiller (Adrian Hoven). Thiller's sadomasochistic paintings, which lovingly depict the torture and murder of women resembling those missing, make the girls suspicious. When Diana meets Thiller in a nightclub, she must go undercover as one of his models to solve the crime, risking her life in his chamber of horrors. Fernando Garcia Morcillo's wonderful jazz soundtrack, sardonic dark humor, and a cast including Michel Lemoine, Marta Reves, Ana Casares, and Marcelo Arroita Jauregui make this twisted adventure worthwhile and fun. Spanish director Julio Perez Tabernero appears, and Franco makes an amusing cameo as a bumbling security guard. Prints run 92 and 88 minutes. The Red Lips girls returned in Besame, Monstruo. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Released as Mark of the Devil to U.S. theaters (accompanied by complimentary barf-bags for squeamish patrons with urpy tendencies), this gory torture-fest was produced in Germany under the title of Hexen bis aufs Blut Gequält (Witches Tortured Till They Bleed). The story is comprised of equal parts Ken Russell's The Devils and Michael Reeves' sardonic Witchfinder General (aka The Conqueror Worm). It involves the demented Count Cumberland (Herbert Lom), an Austrian nobleman who implements the witch-hunting policies of the Inquisition as a means of obtaining land, riches, and nubile young wenches -- particularly the lovely Vanessa (Olivera Vuco), who has been accused of heresy and witchcraft. Cumberland's accomplice in the torture and terror, Baron Christian Von Mem (Udo Kier), realizes too late that his mentor is the true evil stalking the land, not the terrified innocents whose "trials" are a mockery of justice. Christian is sacrificed to the enraged villagers during the inevitable revolt at the film's climax, while the Count makes a hasty escape -- thus enabling the birth of a sequel, Mark of the Devil Part 2. Both films were repackaged in the mid-70's and released in time to join the ranks of the European demon-possession subgenre (American release ads proudly proclaimed "Damn The Exorcist!"). The barf-bags were not entirely unjustified for this graphically sadistic exercise which assaulted audiences with explicit scenes of torture, including the removal of one poor victim's tongue. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Herbert Lom, Olivera Vuco, (more)
- 1968
This plodding German horror production (aka Im Schloss der Bluten Begierde or In the Castle of Bloody Lust) stars Howard Vernon -- a familiar face in countless Euro-horror films such as Awful Dr. Orloff and A Virgin Among the Living Dead -- as the evil Dr. Saxon, who is compelled by a family curse to commit grisly murders in his quest for a suitable heart transplant to reanimate his dead daughter. In an appropriately tasteless twist (reminiscent of the later films of Jess Franco or Mexi-horror auteur Rene Cardona, Jr.), the mad medic's chest-cutting craft is "enhanced" by actual heart-surgery footage -- probably more as a cost-cutting venture than an effort to gross out the audience. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
This strange, surrealistic German horror film from cult director Jesus Franco stars Janine Reynaud as Lorna Green, who performs a pseudo-snuff nightclub act involving erotically staged S&M murders. Lorna's mind is controlled by a man who might be Satan (Michel Lemoine), and she slowly loses her tenuous hold on reality, moving increasingly closer to the night when she begins to really kill. Lorna's nightclub act and the final scenes -- involving a wild orgy where Lorna viciously murders a man named Bill Mulligan (Jack Taylor) -- were cut drastically in some of the film's several release versions. Prints run 93, 84, 81, and 78 minutes. Acclaimed director Fritz Lang called Necronomicon "a beautiful piece of cinema," but its edgy sexuality and hallucinatory tone struck most viewers as confusing and off-putting. This eerie, haunting film co-stars Howard Vernon and Nathalie Nord, while producer Pier A. Caminnecci (who co-scripted) and singer-filmmaker Adrian Hoven also appear. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Janine Reynaud, Jack Taylor, (more)
- 1967
Janine Reynaud and Rossana Yanni return as Diana and Regina, the sexy female detectives from the Red Lips Agency, in cult filmmaker Jesus Franco's enjoyable sequel to El Caso de las Dos Bellezas. The women receive some song lyrics from a messenger who has been stabbed in the back, and they visit an island inhabited by strange, suspicious people. The mystery revolves around the notes of the late eugenics expert Prof. Bertrand, who seems to have been creating muscular mutants in red posing straps before his death. Diana and Regina are kidnapped by lesbians, threatened by the mutants, and appear in several sexy striptease acts in this silly, entertaining romp. Michel Lemoine is the prime suspect, Adrian Hoven and Chris Howland appear as Interpol agents and Franco makes a cameo as a shifty informant. Prints run 83 and 77 minutes. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1966
A French secret agent Lino Ventura gets a license to kill when he is sent to Vienna to plug a security leak in this routine spy saga. He is caught in the crossfire of international enemy agents trying to eliminate the French. He dodges bullets fired by double-crossing double agents and a mysterious spy affiliated with either the Soviet Union or China. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lino Ventura, Jean Bouise, (more)
In this lively horror film, a number of young women have mysteriously vanished and now Inspector Doren is assigned to find them. He goes to the village where the seven murdered maidens lived and ends up assisted by the town witch who leads him to a strange laboratory located in the deepest dungeons of an abandoned castle, where they find the blood-chilling solution to the mystery: the slain women have been rendered undead by their ruthless bloodsucking master, a psychotic professor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
