Hans-Rudolf Twerenbold Movies
- 1989
Max (Werner Haltinner) is a street hustler who lives with the Czech refugee Jiri (Santislav Oriesek) and the prostitute Lizzy (Marianne Schmid) in this urban drama. All three struggle to survive, with Max following Lizzy around in between being hassled by cops and small-time drug dealers. Jiri believes the life that he and everyone else knows is over as Max and Lizzy scheme to find a way out of their depressing situation. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Werner Haltinner, Marianne Schmid, (more)
- 1989
Dieter Laser plays a salesman of sex toys who takes a room in a Swiss hotel in this satirical, sarcastic comedy. He hopes to set up a series of vending machines for his merchandise but no one seems interested. His sleep is disturbed by continual invasions into his room and a loud local band. The salesman tries to proposition a strapping Swiss country lad but is rejected, prompting him to take the room in the crazy hotel. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dieter Laser, Beatrice Kessler, (more)
- 1988
Mark (Max Rudlinger) is a Swiss expert on bugs who boards a plane bound for Stockholm from Zurich in this fantasy adventure. When his plane explodes over the Baltic Sea, Mark inexplicably finds himself in Macao on the other side of the world. He discovers the happy but silent islanders are the dead, and the idyllic island is a purgatory that serves as a transition between eternity and life. Spectacular landscape photography of Switzerland, Denmark, and Macao is effectively used in the feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Max Rudlinger, Christine Lautenburg, (more)
- 1972
In this Swiss film, a young man happens upon a strange, isolated village which is oppressively ruled by foreign soldiers. When he tries to inquire into what is going on, he is forced to flee to an island where a renegade medical doctor tries to force him into submission. The effort fails. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1938
Those zany Ritz Brothers are at it again--good news or bad, depending on one's feelings toward the team. This time they're a trio of Manhattan entertainers who can't get anywhere because hillbilly acts are "in" with radio and theatrical producers. Also left out in the cold by the new fad is singer Marjorie Weaver. Weaver and the Ritzes decide to pass themselves off as hillbillies, and to do this head for the Kentucky hills in order to be discovered. They land smack-dab in the middle of one of those mountain feuds so beloved of comedy filmmakers. Radio star Tony Martin, who has been sent southward to find genuine hayseed talent, spots the Ritzes and Weaver and brings them back to New York. The truth comes out at last, but the Ritz boys redeem themselves with a rib tickling "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" radio sketch--easily the highlight of this wildly uneven film. When reminiscing about Kentucky Moonshine in 1978, director David Butler remembered that team member Al Ritz refused to perform a barefoot hillbilly dance unless he was outfitted with rubber feet! The producers should have recreated that true-life bit in the film and gotten rid of the tiresome opening routine in which the Ritzes play poker using hospital progress charts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- The Ritz Brothers [Al, Jimmy, Harry], Tony Martin, (more)
- 1937
Director Anatole Litvak's first Hollywood film was a remake of his French success L'Equipage, itself based on a novel by Joseph Kessel. Paul Muni stars as Maury, an unorthodox, abrasive WWI fighter-pilot whose skill in the air is compromised by his inability to get along with his colleagues and subordinates. His wife Denise (Miriam Hopkins) loves Maury in her fashion but cheats on him in favor of younger, handsomer flyboy Jean (Louis Hayward). This romantic triangle is settled not in the boudoir but in the air, during a particularly tense "dogfight." Though The Woman I Love often copies L'Equipage scene for scene (even retaining the original musical score by Arthur Honegger and Maurice Thiriet), the ending of the remake is markedly different from that of the original, obviously to appease the more stringent Hollywood censors. The film's title was obviously chosen to cash in on a similar sentiment expressed by Britain's King Edward VII when he abdicated from his throne for the sake of his American wife; perhaps this was why The Woman I Love was retitled The Woman Between in Great Britain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Muni, Miriam Hopkins, (more)
- 1937
While Rita Hayworth was one of many starlets signed to one-year contracts at Columbia in 1936-37, she was one of the few who made the "cut" when option time rolled around. One of those who didn't was Patricia Farr, who starred in All-American Sweetheart before the Columbia execs showed her the door. Farr's top billing is perplexing, since the film's main characters are all male, all members of a college rowing team (an athletic endeavor utilized in no fewer than four 1930s films). The storyline of All-American Sweetheart involved the compromising of certain student rowers, courtesy of bribe-dispensing gangsters. One gets the impression that Columbia would have inserted gangsters into a movie about ping-pong. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patricia Farr, Scott Colton, (more)
- 1935
An innocent but admittedly none-too-bright victim of circumstance, Mary Burns (played by perennial movie victim Sylvia Sidney) is inexorably sucked into the vortex of organized crime. She tries to escape her murderer husband Babe Wilson (Alan Baxter), but it's a losing proposition, especially since the newspapers have already branded her a gun moll. Making matters worse, she is thrown into prison for crimes committed by her husband (understandably, since her behavior at her trial was self-defeating to say the least). Though believing her guilty, detective Harper (Wallace Ford) allows Mary to escape from jail, hoping in this way to track down Wilson. Nominal hero Alec MacDonald (Melvyn Douglas) isn't much help; not introduced until the film's halfway point, he spends most of his time in a hospital bed, recuperating from an injury. In fact, the story is wrapped up only after MacDonald is rescued by the heroine! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvia Sidney, Melvyn Douglas, (more)
- 1934
Carole Lombard's only MGM film, The Gay Bride has been cited by some as a precursor to 1988's Married to the Mob -- only without the laughs. Adapted by the usually reliable Samuel and Bella Spewack from Charles Francis Coe's magazine story Repeal, the film charts the misadventures of gold-digging chorine Mary (Lombard), who marries powerful bootlegger Shoots Magis (Nat Pendleton) so that she can live in the lap of luxury -- only to suffer a major disappointment when Prohibition is repealed. After a few amusing episodes with the deadly but basically likeable Magis, he's unexpectedly bumped off by gangster Dingle (Sam Hardy). Mary takes this in stride and moves in on Dingle, whereupon he's killed by mob boss Mickey (Leo Carrillo) -- so guess whom Mary snuggles up to next. Handsome "Office Boy" (Chester Morris), Magis' former chauffeur/bodyguard, continues carrying a torch for Mary throughout the picture, undoubtedly hoping that all of his rivals will eventually kill each other off. Wavering uncertainly between screwball comedy and gangster melodrama, The Gay Bride was met with indifference by the public -- and by its studio, which virtually threw the picture away. In later years, Carole Lombard tagged the film as her worst; it's not that by any means, but it's a far distance from her best. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carole Lombard, Chester Morris, (more)
