Eddie Constantine Movies

Germany Year Nine Zero follows an old spy's journey back to France from the east. Since the Cold War has ended the spy is unclear about who his enemies are, and he doesn't know what to do with himself. Jean-Luc Godard's film is a series of scenes that present his thoughts on European unification and the fall of Communism. The title harkens back to Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero, a film made in the immediate aftermath of World War II that, like Godard's film, considered the fate of the world in changing political conditions. As his use of Rossellini's title suggests, Godard is concerned with the fate of cinema as well as the fate of the world. He is concerned that as borders are erased, and as the world comes more and more under the sway of corporate power, the cinema will become more and more homogenized and commercial. ~ Louis Schwartz, All Movie Guide

Alex (Kari Vaananen) is a Finnish cabbie working in Berlin with plenty of problems in this comedy with film noir touches. With two dead men and a suitcase filled with hundred dollar bills, he has difficulty disposing of the bodies. He is chased by the top crime boss (Samuel Fuller) and his crony (Eddie Constantine). Alex's wife is allergic to the money, so the cabbie endures more than he can handle trying to rid himself of the cash and the corpses. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Herbie Melbourne (Didi Hallervorden) is a poor schlemiel who is inadvertently caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea in this German farce about a cab driver (Hallervorden) assigned to bring a "comrade" back to the East German side of the Berlin wall, a passenger who is dead to the world, permanently, when he arrives. Herbie the cabbie is recruited by the KGB and East German Intelligence to help them discover who murdered the man in his back seat. After arriving on the West German side of the divide, Herbie is then recruited by the CIA and West German Intelligence to become a counterspy, for double what the other side is paying him. As Herbie seems to have no viable way out of this mess, he does what many have done before him, he goes to a therapist (Catherine Alric) for help. Reaching into her bag of tricks, the therapist gives Herbie a small bottle he can sniff when in need of self-confidence, an act guaranteed to put him on top of any situation. Now Herbie is a cabbie, a KGB agent, a CIA agent, and a bottle sniffer -- and he is falling in love with his gorgeous therapist. Although the standard chase routines are a bit lengthy and exaggerated, this spy spoof keeps its sense of humor intact.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this enigmatic thriller, Susannah (Tusse Silberg) is suddenly herded out of an apartment in the middle of the night and brought to a police station for extensive questioning about why she was in a place that belonged to a known criminal. What the police do not know is that Susannah has been somehow involved in the death of a woman and has reunited with her sister Julie (Lisa Kreuzer) in Berlin. Julie herself has some rather unusual friends -- including Eddie Constantine the American-born French actor and singer who plays himself. It is these characters and their dialogue and asides, and even background action and scenery, that form the real body of this specialized film -- not the plot. For these reasons, this type of film is best limited to those who are more interested in avant-garde than in commercial cinema. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this creatively organized story of one "delinquent," director Patrick Chaput has put together a well-paced drama/thriller set in part against the dark by-ways of Paris. Seventeen-year-old Daniel (Philippe Sfez) grew up in foster homes in a rural area and those years contrast with his later youth in Paris. A filmmaker opts to interview Daniel for a documentary on delinquency, and that is how the young man's past and precarious present start coming to light. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A fictional narrative and a documentary interview are mixed together in this film about two women deprived of independence for many years because of either their family obligations or an authoritarian spouse. In the fictional segment, based on a novel by Alexandra Kollontai (the first Soviet ambassador to Sweden and an early advocate of women's rights), the young woman Vassilissa (Sascha Hammer) learns how to stand up to her womanizing husband (Mark Eins). Director Rosa von Praunheim plays this story out in the tone of an early 20th century "morality" play. The second focus of the film is about Helga Goetze, a mother of seven children who left her brood when she was 50 years old (and her youngest was already 16) to join the Otto Muehl Commune in Vienna and live a liberated life of sexual freedom, filled with involvement in the arts, literature, and politics. Helga moved to the Kreuzberg district of West Berlin, where the on-camera interview was conducted. Director Praunheim opted for interspersing fictional and documentary segments so as to better chronicle the move toward independence and sexual "liberation" on the part of the two main female protagonists. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

~Tango Durch Deutschland (Mommartz, Lutz) [161477] aka: Tango through Germany An ironic look at the difference between a film image and reality, this drama by Lutz Mommartz features American actor Eddie Constantine as himself. During the 1950s, Constantine starred in several film noir adventures as the nefarious Lemmy Caution. In this story, he walks out of a kind of film museum where he has been enshrined as the typecast character he played so well. Out on the streets, Constantine runs into his screen image as a tough guy over and over again. Men give him a rough time thinking he is Lemmy Caution; no one distinguishes the actor behind the screen persona. Finally he meets a woman (Maya Farber-Jansen) who seems willing to accept him on his own terms. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A sartorially resplendent woman (Tabea Blumenschein) arrives in Berlin with plans to live out the rest of her days as a drunkard in this experimental film. The film provides the viewer with a tour of the city and some of the more colorful characters, but the appeal may be limited to those who are mavens of the experimental style. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The French Ministry of the Future announces that it has computer-selected a so-called "average" French couple, Jean-Michel and Claudine (Andre Dussolier and Anemone), and will use what it finds out from them to determine how to manage housing and other government programs in the future. Overnight, they become famous and are subjected to endless questions by government functionaries. Commercial forces interested in using them for marketing research also begin to hound them. The couple is kidnapped just as they begin to rebel against their exploitation. This gives the government just the excuse it needs to drop the whole program, which had begun to develop in some awkward directions. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

When the older brother of a young butcher who boxes on the side decides to make a feature film about his brother's life, the young man is reluctant but agrees when he learns that a beautiful Vietnamese girl he has a yen for will be his co-star. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Enrico Malatesta (Eddie Constantine) leads a group of Latvian dissidents in the siege of Sidney Street. Chief of police Winston Churchill organizes against the anarchist who threaten to disturb the peace to make their demands known to the British aristocracy. Authorities break up the volatile gang and Malatesta is deported to Italy. Constantine gives a sympathetic portrayal of the agitator that organizes the revolt that shocked the Edwardian sensibilities of London in this historical drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide