Rolf Thiele Movies

This German sex comedy deals with the comeuppance of a young girl's philandering surgeon father who assigns his three best friends to chaperon her while he travels the Mediterranean on a business trip. Each of the best friends has at least one liaison with the girl before the film ends; on his business trip, the father is amorously engaged with a number of handsome women. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This feature examines the sexual attitudes and practices of Germans for the last 2000 years. The naked barbarians were clothed by Christian missionaries and women relegated to second-class citizens for centuries. Songs and stories relate the invention of the chastity belt, the introduction of syphilis to the country and the wild fluctuation of public attitudes on sex. From the intolerance of the Hitler regime to the decadence of the post-World Wars era, the Teutonic attitudes and mores have changed with the times and were often a measure of political pressure and moralistic rigidity. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, the trouble begins when a computer whiz tries to explain to the cops that his car was wrecked by an elephant. The cops naturally think he is looney, a suspicion confirmed when he frantically demands they let him go because his duck will be ringing at seven-thirty and he must be home to answer it. Despite his protestations, they immediately squire him to the local nut house. Unfortunately, the hacker is perfectly sane. There really was an elephant; it really did sit on his car, and his "duck" is his computer. Now the only way the hapless nerd can get home is to feign insanity so that the shrinks will free him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A trio of crooks just out of prison plan their next scheme to strike it rich in this amusing crime comedy. Kurt (Curd Jurgens) is a handsome ladies man, with Charly (Walter Giller) as a dim-witted dolt and Roland (Charles Regnier) as the criminal mastermind. Their scheme is to ship Volkswagens to the United States, sell them for a profit, and eliminate the nearly 18 months waiting time the car buyers normally had to endure. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This drama is taken from Thomas Mann's 1903 semi-autobiographical novel. Tonio (Jean Claude Brialy) is an aspiring writer and the son of a rigid aristocratic father and a music-loving mother. Wandering throughout Germany and Italy to "find himself," Tonio frequently remembers his childhood experiences in a series of flashbacks. The highlight of the film is the expert lensing by cinematographer Wolf Wirth. Erika Mann, the daughter of the late poet and author, collaborated with Ennio Flaiano on the screenplay. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Director Rolf Thiele who tends to specialize in erotic films, is at the helm of this slight, uninspired tale featuring nudity and suggestive dialogue. Seven gorgeous women are holed up together in a remote vacation house up in the mountains, and they have nothing much to do. Their conversations tend to allude to certain sexual liaisons and cover topics like men and love. There are no other featured players in the film except for the women and their physical charms. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This drama is a remake of Pabst's famed 1929 film Die Buechse Der Pandora/Pandora's Box. It tells the story of a 14 year-old girl who is caught while trying to pick a doctor's pocket. The doctor ends up taking her in and turning her into a sophisticated lady whom he marries off to a wealthy man. Her new husband really likes to watch her dancing naked. Later, when he catches her 'dancing' with a young artist, the husband drops dead of a heart attack. She then marries the artist, but he soon commits suicide. After that she marries her doctor, but when they get into a fight over a pistol, she accidentally shoots him. She is sent to prison, but is later freed by the doctor's son, and his lesbian pal. The threesome head for gay Paris. In the end, she ends up a streetwalker in London where she becomes a victim of Jack the Ripper. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Labyrinth by director Rolf Thiele is aptly titled, since viewers may find the story itself labyrinthian, in that it is hard to figure out where it is going. The setting is a mental institution in Switzerland with a caseload of inmates battling alcoholism with varying degrees of success or failure. The one component that all the patients share is economic and social status, since the clinic does not come free. One of the inmates is an American writer hooked on the bottle and plagued by severe depression. Her case is central to the story. She fights a losing battle against her illness until one tragic event at the institution shakes her out of her depression and sets her on the road back to health. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Originally Das Madchen Rosemarie, this German "musical tragedy" has a lot in common with the Bertold Brecht/Kurt Weill theatrical pieces The Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahoganny; in fact, the music heard throughout was taken from Weill's backlog. Austrian beauty contest winner Nadja Tiller plays the prostitute heroine, based on a real-life call girl whose predilection for blackmailing her high-profile customers ended with her mysterious death in 1957. The film was advertised as a "satire," with the satirical level exemplified by a chorus of capitalist businessmen rhythmically opening and closing their briefcases. The "frivolity" of Rosemary is punctuated by moments of chilling horror, including the film's bleak denouement. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide