Bernhard Wicki Movies

Der Spinnennetz was released in English-speaking countries as The Spider's Web. Ulrich Muhe plays a German businessman who was born completely without scruples. This makes him an eminently suitable candidate for success in the chaotic years after World War I. The shameless man's story is contrasted with that of his polar opposite, a Jewish anarchist (Klaus Maria Brandauer). This unusually long film needs every one of its 198 minutes to do full justice to its Byzantine storyline. Director Bernhard Wicki co-adapted the screenplay from a novel by Joseph Roth. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

No more than a two-hour dialogue between three disparate foreigners held for investigation in a Paris cell block in 1939, this drama about war and its consequences focuses primarily on the three men. Lodek (Jorg Godzuhn) is a German sailor who is very much against Hitler and his tactics (Lodek tells this tale, which emerges in flashbacks), Grunstein (Fred Duren) is a Jewish butcher who happens to be in France because of an inheritance he needs to collect, and the third man is a Greek cook (Klaus Schwarzkopf) whose main distinction is a fleeting encounter with Kaiser Wilhelm, the high point of his life. In order to wile away the time, the men drum up a chessboard and chess pieces from materials at hand, and start long chess sessions in which their attitudes and thoughts about life are exchanged. When Grunstein cleverly develops a move that "trumps" and stumps his opponents, he wins three games in a row, and even now Lodek cannot figure out how he did it.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The life and times of Marie Ward, the founder of the Loretto Order of nuns, (aka the Institute of Mary) are examined in this religious biography that is filmed on locations related to her activities. The unusually devout and independent nun originally came from a Catholic family in Yorkshire and took her vows and training at St. Omer in France. An activist to the core, she spent time helping those in prison and started the Institute of Mary in 1606, with the idea of bringing other nuns out into society to help those in need. As she defends her Institute to two successive Popes, it is ultimately banned until 1707, a half-century after her death. This bio also examines other difficulties and trials that made her career a challenge, and ultimately undermined her health.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Yuri Bondarev, this romantic drama starts at the close of World War II near Hamburg, where Nikitin (Boris Shcherbakov), a lieutenant in the Soviet army, is temporarily stationed. Nikitin meets a German teenager named Emma (Natalya Belochvostikova), and the two have a brief, intense affair before he has to leave for home. Many years later, Nikitin is visiting Hamburg by invitation of his German publisher -- where he meets Emma once more because she has been asked to translate for him. The old flame flares up again as the now-married, ex-lovers reminisce about the past without indulging their feelings. In reality, more emotion is invested on the war than on the love between the protagonists, causing romantic passion to be detoured, if not derailed. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Based on a non-fiction bestseller of the same name by Rolf Hochhuth, Eine Liebe In Deutschland is about a tragic and forbidden love affair between Stanislaw, a Polish POW (Piotr Lysak) and Paulina (Hanna Schygulla) a fruit-and-vegetable vendor in a small town in Germany along the border with Switzerland. Their affair would have gone undetected except for the busybody women of the village, and when Stanislaw is picked up by a German stormtrooper (Armin Müller-Stahl) and brought in for a mock trial, he is given a chance to prove his racial purity and so perhaps escape execution. As for Paulina, she is ostracized by the villagers and imprisoned for consorting with someone who was not of the same high Aryan caste as herself. Depressing, yet politically relevant to Poland of the early 1980s, this film by acclaimed director Andrzej Wajda) is an effective and emotional statement on the nature of oppression. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In an extended, two-hour, black-and-white record of the mental disintegration of theatrical-star Lisa (Katharina Thalbach), director (Thomas Brasch) follows her life through a successful performance, a breakdown during another performance, the death of a director friend, constant intrusions into her apartment home, and domino games played against herself -- with her mother cast as her imaginary opponent cast. Lisa's world and the real world mix and mingle, tangled together as stability wanes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Director Bertrand Tavernier provides an unexpected feminist slant to the otherwise standard sci-fi trappings of Death Watch. Harvey Keitel plays a man of the future who has had a camera implanted in his brain. The mechanism, which is endowed with special X-ray properties, is activated by the user's eyes. Keitel is assigned by ruthless TV producer Harry Dean Stanton to secretly probe the subconscious of a dying woman, played by Romy Schneider. Stanton is only interested in the grim spectacle of what goes on inside the brain of someone who knows she's doomed. Keitel, on the other hand, becomes increasingly compassionate--and disgusted by the tawdriness of his assignment--as he stares into Schneider's tortured psyche. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When a school crashes down around the children inside for no apparent reason, architect Phillip Braun (Helmut Griem) is quickly apprehended and tried for having condoned inferior design and construction of the building. He is sentenced to prison. After he has already served his sentence, his lawyer (who in the meantime has become the lover of Phillip's wife) discovers that the real blame for the incident may lie elsewhere. However, overwhelmed by his passions, Phillip is easy prey for the villain. This psychological crime thriller was based on The Glass Cell by Patricia Highsmith. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

While on an automobile tour of Italy with his mother, the German publisher in this story has an accident which results in her death. He decides to stay and look for work in Italy, rather than return to his responsibilities, and takes a job working on a construction site. His co-workers are similarly displaced men: one is a Greek exile, the other a Basque terrorist. The elaborate house they are working on is to be the home of a wealthy local man. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Bernhard Wicki directed this hard-hitting World War II espionage drama. Marlon Brando plays Robert Crain, a German deserter who is coerced by British Intelligence officer Colonel Statter (Trevor Howard) to impersonate a Gestapo officer in order to get aboard a German blockade runner that is conveying a valuable rubber cargo from the Orient. Crain's assignment is to save the rubber by finding a way to deactivate the explosives that the ship's captain would use to destroy the ship if captured by the enemy. Crain finds his way aboard the ship, but the ship's commander Captain Mueller (Yul Brynner), skeptical of the Nazis, refuses to let Crain out of his sight. When survivors of a sunken vessel board the ship, and Crain realizes that his identity may be exposed by two rescued German submarine officers, he incites Mueller's officers and the new arrivals to mutiny before his true identity is revealed. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

A woman married to a well-meaning but stuffy attorney has an adulterous affair with a flamboyant author. The novelist is a friend of the family, but the secret affair becomes public when she is involved in an auto accident where she leaves the scene of the crime. The wronged husband gives the police false information to protect his unfaithful wife from being charged with the crime. Consumed with guilt, she finally goes to the police, confesses her sins, and vows to stay with her loving husband. The title refers to the amount of time the couple has been married. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The Longest Day is a mammoth, all-star re-creation of the D-Day invasion, personally orchestrated by Darryl F. Zanuck. Whenever possible, the original locations were utilized, and an all-star international cast impersonates the people involved, from high-ranking officials to ordinary GIs. Each actor speaks in his or her native language with subtitles translating for the benefit of the audience (alternate "takes" were made of each scene with the foreign actors speaking English, but these were seen only during the first network telecast of the film in 1972). The stars are listed alphabetically, with the exception of John Wayne, who as Lt. Colonel Vandervoort gets separate billing. Others in the huge cast include Eddie Albert, Jean-Louis Barrault, Richard Burton, Red Buttons, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Gert Frobe, Curt Jurgens, Peter Lawford, Robert Mitchum, Kenneth More, Edmond O'Brien, Robert Ryan, Jean Servais, Rod Steiger and Robert Wagner. Paul Anka, who wrote the film's title song, shows up as an Army private. Scenes include the Allies parachuting into Ste. Mere Englise, where the paratroopers were mowed down by German bullets; a real-life sequence wherein the German and Allied troops unwittingly march side by side in the dark of night; and a spectacular three-minute overhead shot of the troops fighting and dying in the streets of Quistreham. The last major black-and-white road-show attraction, The Longest Day made millions, enough to recoup some of the cost of 20th Century Fox's concurrently produced Cleopatra. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi