Andrews Englemann Movies
- 1939
Wasser Fur Canitoga (Water for Canitoga) is a duck-billed platypus of a film: a German-language western, filmed in Canada and designed as anti-British propaganda. Hans Albers, in 1939 Germany's most popular male actor, plays the rough-and-tumble hero. Falsely accused of sabotaging the system that pipes water to a remote Canadian outpost. The climax finds Albers struggling to save the subterranean piping machinery, at the cost of his own life. As he lies dying on the floor of the local saloon, his fellow miners strike up a soulful chorus of "Good-bye, Johnny!" This scene alone is worth the admission price of the slow-moving but undeniably compelling Wasser Fur Canitoga. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1936
This adventure is adapted from a melodrama by Victor Hugo and is about the amoral captain of the first steamship who greedily abandons his ship and leaves his first mate in charge to navigate the dangerous Channel islands. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1936
In this drama, a Secret Service agent must prevent a notorious international crook for taking an important treaty. Unfortunately, the agent is sent to prison after accidentally killing one of the criminal's henchmen. Determined to complete his assignment, the agent, enlisting the aid of the agent's lover, who is also the criminal's daughter, escapes from prison and captures the would-be thief. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1935
The Crouching Beast was based on Clubfoot, an espionage novel by Valentine Williams. Set in 1915 Constantinople, the story is motivated by the sinister activities of Turkish secret agent Ahmed Bey (Fritz Kortner), better known as Clubfoot. Wynne Gibson stars as American newspaperwoman Gail Dunbar, who becomes inadvertently involved in Clubfoot's skullduggery, and at one point is subjected to a torturous interrogation by the villain. She escapes in time to aid a British agent in stealing plans of the Dardanelles fortifications. Originally released at 79 minutes, The Crouching Beast was shown of a reel's worth of footage before its American release through RKO Radio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wynne Gibson, Fritz Kortner, (more)
- 1935
In this comedy, a wealthy businessman and his two workers begin scoping out Chinatown for new business opportunities. It is there he learns that his new wife's ex-husband is a blackmailing crook, preparing to victimize him. The businessman decides to destroy the crook before he destroys him. Comic mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1933
The story of a military officer during the Weimar Republik who runs away to China, gets involved with some Volga Germans. They get a train, repair the rails and head back to Germany. German language only. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1933
In this espionage drama, an American in Europe gives the wrong address to a taxi driver and ends up mistaken for a spy in charge of overthrowing a tiny monarchy by causing a prominent countess to be charged with treason and executed. Naturally the hapless Yank is assigned the task of planting the damning papers upon her person. Fortunately, the countess is not what she seems to be and together, she and the American pull a few double-crosses and escape their difficult situation. The film is also known as The Morning After. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sally Eilers, Ben Lyon, (more)
- 1930
This grim and gripping British melodrama was originally released in 1931 under the title Wolves. The scene is a Labrador whaling camp, where everyone is a fugitive from justice, and not a few are murderers. Dorothy Gish plays Leila, an unconscious survivor of a shipwreck who drifts into the camp in a rowboat. She is rescued by the lust-driven whalers, who then draw lots to see who will "win" her. Stacking the deck, a big lout named Job (Charles Laughton) claims Leila as his, but it turns out that he's an honorable sort who wishes only to rescue the girl from the other men. Wolves didn't make it to the U.S. until 1936, by which time its title was changed to Wanted Men and its running time was hacked down to 35 minutes by the censors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Laughton, Dorothy Gish, (more)
- 1930
In this WW I drama, an Austrian officer is injured and left behind while his troops attempt to leave an occupied town. The wounded soldier is discovered by a Jewish clockmaker's daughter who takes him home. Her father strongly objects for this officer was responsible for killing his son and for putting him in prison. While the girl continues nursing the enemy soldier, the father attempts to notify the Russian troops. Unfortunately, the message never makes it through. Though the ailing officer and the girl are attracted to each other, they are forced to return to their separate lives when he is well again. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Randle Ayrton, John Longden, (more)
- 1929
In this British action film, an early talkie, a young German girl is hypnotized by a circus performer who makes her do risky parachute jumps. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
German filmmaker G.W. Pabst and Hollywood expatriate Louise Brooks re-team after the success of Pandora's Box for the silent film Diary of a Lost Girl. On the day of her confirmation, innocent young Thymiane Henning (Brooks) is given a lockable diary as a present. She's distraught because the housekeeper Elisabeth (Sibylle Schmitz) is leaving under curious circumstances and turns up presumably dead. Her duties are taken over by the conniving Meta (Franziska Kinz), who accepts the advances of Thymiane's pharmacist father (Josef Ravensky). Trying to understand Elisabeth's fate, Thymiane agrees to meet her father's assistant, Meinert (Fritz Rasp). She passes out, he carries her up to her room, and by the next scene she has borne a child by him. Meta snoops in Thymiane's diary and finds out it was Meinert's baby, so she suggests they get married. Thymiane refuses, so they throw her in a creepy reformatory for fallen women and leave her baby with a midwife. While in the reformatory, she meets Erika (Edith Meinhard), with whom she eventually escapes. To escape from poverty and homelessness, the girls then become nominal prostitutes in a brothel and are "sexually liberated." ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louise Brooks, Fritz Rasp, (more)
- 1928
Mercurial director Rex Ingram closed out his silent-film career with the British production Three Passions. Ingram's lovely wife Alice Terry is cast as Lady Victoria, who tries to dissuade her sweetheart Philip Wrexham (Ivan Petrovitch) from becoming a priest. But Wrexham cannot forget the fact that he was responsible for the death of a foreman in his father's factory, and he intends to shut himself off from the rest of the world. When it turns out that Wrexham is the only man capable of preventing a crippling factory strike, his father prevails upon Lady Victoria to fetch the young man back to the "outside world." But Wrexham is immovable -- at least until he is galvanized into action when a cad tries to put the make on the beautiful Lady V. Realizing that his responsibilities lie with his father and his family business, Wrexham forsakes the priesthood, saves the factory, and weds the heroine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alice Terry, Ivan Petrovich, (more)
