Benno Hoffmann Movies

The Cow and I is purportedly based on the wartime experiences of its star, French farceur Fernandel. The horse-faced comedian plays a French farmer stuck in Germany strong-armed into working for the Nazis. Deciding to escape, Fernandel and his faithful cow walk across Deutschland to his home in France. After a series of picaresque adventures, the farmer and his bovine buddy make it to French soil, only to run afoul of collaborators. The Cow and I was originally released as La Vache et le Prisonnier. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This crime thriller contains enough comedy and blood to interest almost any movie fan. Shady underworld thugs gather in a seedy Soho hotel in Room 13 to plan a train robbery. They plan to rendezvous in the mansion of a member of Parliament who is being blackmailed for his ties to the gang 20 years earlier. Simultaneously, a mysterious slasher is murdering women with a straight razor. Jonny Gray (Joachim Fuschberger) is the detective who is called on to solve the robbery and the murders. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Director Harald Reinl takes this epic sword-and-sorcery fantasy from the 12th-century Teutonic legend and from the 1924 Fritz Lang silent classic. Siegfried (Uwe Beyer) is a heroic warrior who bathes in dragon's blood to become nearly invincible. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

The Castle (Das Schloss) is as good an adaptation of the inscrutable Franz Kafka as any. Maximillian Schell plays Kafka's ubiquitous protagonist "K", a surveyor who is hired by the residents of a remote castle. Once he arrives within the domain of the castle's owners, K finds there is no work for him. His efforts to contact those inside the castle are thwarted by the mysteriously obstructive villagers. In keeping with the fact that the novel was unfinished, the film has been released with two different endings: non-adherents of Kafka might argue that it could use two different beginnings and middles as well. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Many people may not know that apartment leases in Germany are a lifetime affair, which is one reason apartments there are so difficult to find. Thus, it comes as something of a surprise to 82 year-old Lina Braake (Lina Carstens) when her bank kicks her out of the apartment she has been living in and forces her into a retirement home which, like its U.S. counterparts, treats its residents as if they were infants. There she meets a retired bank manager who delights in the idea of getting even with the men who wronged her. Together, they cook up a scheme so tight that the bank can do nothing when it figures out what has been going on. The title of the film, translated into English, tells the whole story in a nutshell: Lina Braake -- the Bank's Interests Can't Be the Interests Lina Braake Has. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi