Walter Gotell Movies

Lilli Marlene was inspired by the popular wartime German ballad. Lisa Daniely plays a French songstress who achieves radio fame during the Nazi occupation. She is spirited out of France by an American radio broadcaster (Hugh McDermott), but is recaptured by the Nazis and forced to make "Axis Sally" style pro-German propaganda speeches. After the war, the girl is tried for treason, but is cleared by the American who'd earlier gotten her out of France. Distressingly shoddy, Lilli Marlene was nonetheless a hit, thanks to the built-in popularity of the title song. It was followed by a less successful sequel, The Wedding of Lilli Marlene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dick Richards directed this French Foreign Legion adventure that's at once parodies and pays tribute to the venerable Hollywood epics that preceded it. Gene Hackman stars as Major William Sherman Foster, a soldier who has been kicked out of West Point but has managed to obtain command of a group of Legionnaires after the end of World War I. His troops have been ordered to accompany an archeological expedition traveling to Morocco headed by Francois Marneau (Max von Sydow). Foster's motley band includes an on-the-lam cat burglar named Marco Segrain (Terence Hill), an ex-guardsman from the deposed Russian monarchy named Ivan (Jack O'Halloran), an adventure-seeking aristocrat named Fred Hastings (Paul Sherman), and an alluring beauty named Simone Picard (Catherine Deneuve). As the band makes their way to Morocco, they cross paths with the fervid and bloodthirsty Arab leader El Krim (Ian Holm), who vows to unite his people to expel foreigners from their land. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this adaptation of Ian Fleming's 1955 novel, James Bond (Roger Moore) must thwart Sir Hugo Drax (Michel Lonsdale), who plans to wipe out all of humankind and replace it with a super race that he has cultivated in a massive space station. The girl in the case is American secret agent Holly Goodhead, intelligently played by Lois Chiles. "Jaws," the steel-mouthed henchman played by Richard Kiel in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), makes a return appearance in Moonraker, turning good guy (complete with a girlfriend of his own) in the process. Bernard Lee makes his last appearance as "M" in this most costly of James Bond's 1970s escapades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This (13th) time around, "007" receives the usual call to come and visit "Mother" when another agent drops off a fake Faberge jeweled egg at the British embassy in East Berlin and is later killed at a traveling circus. Suspicions mount when the assistant manager of the circus Kamal (Louis Jourdan), outbids Bond for the real Faberge piece at Sotheby's. Bond follows Kamal to India where the superspy thwarts many an ingenious attack and encounters the antiheroine of the title (Maud Adams), an international smuggler who runs the circus as a cover for her illegal operations. It does not take long to figure out that Orlov (Steven Berkoff), a decidedly rank Russian general is planning to raise enough money with the fake Faberges to detonate a nuclear bomb in Europe and then defeat NATO forces once and for all in conventional warfare. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

After causing the needless death of another officer during a near-miss air disaster, a distraught army officer resigns from the military. Still, the American wants to serve in the war effort and so, calling himself a Canadian, enlists in the British military to train as a paratrooper. Revealing nothing about his past, he proves himself obedient and exceptionally skilled. This rouses the suspicion of his commanding officer who starts investigating the trooper. Later, the trooper more than proves himself during a dangerous mission to North Africa. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This entry in the horror thriller series shows how the mad French puppeteer Toulon created his supernaturally animated demonic marionettes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This campy horror sequel to the original 1983 feature is laced with doses of dark humor and blood-spattering special effects. Camp Rolling Hills is losing enrollment as the "bad teens" are being murdered in various gruesome manners. Angela Baker (Pamela Springsteen) is the moralistic camp counselor who tells people the campers have been "sent home." The victims are beaten, slashed choked, and one is even drowned in an outhouse as others die in creative and grisly ways. Renee Estevez stars as Molly, the heroine of the film who somehow manages to avoid being killed. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Cornel Wilde co-produces, directs, and stars with his wife Jean Wallace in this uneven version of fabled King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Wilde, a skilled fencer, is Lancelot and appropriately enough, Wallace is his lady-love Guinevere. This time around, their traditionally chaste romance (Guinevere marries King Arthur) takes on a more modern veneer as she and Lancelot become intimate. Aside from their love story, several battles on horseback keep the knights busy as King Arthur struggles to hold onto his throne in the face of a challenge from King Leodogran (John Longdon). ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

After years of wooing director John Huston via good reviews, film critic James Agee was given a chance to write the screenplay for a Huston picture. Adapted from a novel by C.S. Forester, The African Queen stars Humphrey Bogart in his Oscar-winning portrayal of Charlie Allnut, the slovenly, gin-swilling captain of a tramp steamer called the African Queen, which ships supplies to small East African villages during World War I. Katharine Hepburn plays Rose Sayer, the maiden-lady sister of a prim British missionary (Robert Morley). When invading Germans kill the missionary and level the village, Allnut offers to take Rose back to civilization. She can't tolerate his drinking or bad manners; he isn't crazy about her imperious, judgmental attitude. However it does not take long before their passionate dislike turns to love. Together the disparate duo work to ensure their survival on the treacherous waters and devise an ingenious way to destroy a German gunboat. The African Queen may well be the perfect adventure film, its roller-coaster storyline complemented by the chemistry between its stars. The profound difficulties inherent in filming on location in Africa have been superbly documented by several books, including one written by Katharine Hepburn. Screenwriter Peter Viertel (who worked, on an uncredited basis, on the script of this film - assisting with some of the dialogue) incorporated some of the African Queen anecdotes in his roman a clef about a Huston-like director/adventurer, White Hunter, Black Heart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This film of Ira Levin's novel The Boys from Brazil wastes no time in establishing the fact that several seemingly unrelated men have been mysteriously murdered. Elderly Jewish Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier), brought into the case when the clues seem to point to a neo-fascist plot, traces the trail of evidence to Paraguay. Here he finds an unregenerate Auschwitz doctor, patterned on Joseph Mengele and played by -- of all people -- Gregory Peck. Lieberman discovers that the murdered men had all fathered sons who were identical -- the results of a cloning experiment, designed to create a race of incipient Hitlers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This crime drama finds American agent Novak (Yul Brynner) sent to Scotland Yard to help uncover a gang of forgers, murderers and counterfeiters. Even when the British agent Thompson (Edward Woodward) is assigned to help, Novak still remains suspicious of everyone. From Liverpool, the duo traces the Owl (Charles Gray) to London where they hope to meet up with the mysterious gang leader Mr. Big. Novak eventually trusts Thompson as the two close in on the gang that is raking in millions with their illegal activities. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Conrad Phillips, who has starred as William Tell in a popular British TV series produced by the same crew responsible for The Invisible Man, is here seen as military demolitions expert Barry Finch. While demonstrating a new and extremely sensistive bomb, Finch is trapped in a sand pit a few feet away from the explosive--which will instantly detonate if a shadow falls upon it. The only man in the world capable of rescuing Finch and defusing the bomb is also the only man who casts no shadow--namely, the invisible Peter Brady. This episode was cowritten by The Avengers' Brian Clemens, pseudonymously billed as Tony O'Grady. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A stellar cast redeems the tawdry European-filmed melodrama 3DThe Man Inside3D. Nigel Patrick plays Sam Carter, a mild-mannered British clerk who spends half his life fantasizing about stealing a valuable diamond. When he is finally able to pull off this heist, it is at the cost of another man's life. Escaping to the Continent, Sam lives like a king, throwing his money around and romancing an unending stream of willing females. Private detective Milo March (Jack Palance) suspects that Sam is in some way tied in with the jewel theft, as are several less reputable types. Among the latter category are femme fatale Trudie Hall (Anita Ekberg) and two-bit crooks Lomer (Bonar Colleano, whose last film this was) and Rizzio (Sean Kelly). Anthony Newley also shows up briefly as a comedy-relief cabbie. If 3DThe Man Inside3D seems like a dry run for the "James Bond" films of the 1960s, it may be because the film was produced by Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and scripted by Richard Maibaum, both mainstays of the Bond series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide