Paul Esser Movies
- 1983
This film is a superficial extravaganza on the "roaring 1950s" in West Germany and West Berlin, when the rich, according to director Peter Zadek, were partying through the decade with little else on their minds than hedonistic pleasures, and the poor were struggling to become richer. Documentary clips bring in the realities of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War, and their honesty stands in sharp contrast to the exaggerated lifestyles that permeate the screen. The story focuses on the super-rich Jakob Formann (Juraj Kurkura) and his exploits and friends in high and low places. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boy Gobert, Peter Kern, (more)
- 1971
This German comedy is basically a star vehicle for Heinze Erhardt, a comedian so deeply beloved by German audiences that the content of this film is of secondary importance to the fact that he appears in it. The character he plays is a very agreeable retired financier, a "soft touch," who is perpetually short of money. He decides to take a job to help keep up with his debts and chooses to be a salesman. He keeps at it despite being fired a few times, and things eventually turn out well. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Le Rouge aux Levres is a stylish, fascinating, very erotic vampire film based on Sheridan le Fanu's Camilla, the classic tale of a lesbian vampire. A young married couple, Stefan (John Karlen) and Valerie (Daniele Ouimet), honeymoon at a deserted oceanside resort where they meet Countess Elisabeth Bathory (Delphine Seyrig) and her companion Ilona (Andrea Rau). Valerie has discovered that Stefan is a brutal sexual sadist and is drawn to the Countess because of her warmth and sensuality. Ilona attempts to seduce Stefan but is accidentally killed, and the Countess takes her revenge on his wife. Director Harry Kumel directs with stunning visual style and maintains the erotic intensity and tension between the characters with skill, getting a particularly good performance from the magnificent Delphine Seyrig, who resembles in both mood and looks the young Marlene Dietrich. Erotic, unusual and extremely violent, Le Rouge aux Levres, also released as Daughters of Darkness is one of the finest vampire films ever produced, making up with style and class what it might have lacked in budget. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Delphine Seyrig, Daniele Ouimet, (more)
- 1970
Willie (Heinz Erhardt) is a sympathetic tax collector nearing the end of his career and looking forward to retirement. He champions the cause of the needy and poor by losing the tax information that allows the government to collect the money. His boss is angry with Willie who is in danger of losing his pension over the incident. Pretending to be insane to escape punishment, his actions win the sympathies of a high ranking tax official. Willie's story endears him to the man and the general population and he is promoted to a high paying job in this delightful comedy. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Heinz Erhardt, Ralf Wolter, (more)
- 1969
A father tries to educate his nubile teenage daughter about sex when she continually cavorts nude around the house. Local construction workers fall off the scaffolding of the nearby building when they see the naked girl. Since she is not acting on her hormonal impulses like most of her classmates, the mandatory sex education class in school is her only resource for the story of the birds and bees. Her mother is absent and her father is reluctant and embarrassed in this situation sex comedy. Mascha Gronska is the titillating teenager and Georg Thomalla is the concerned father. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mascha Gonska, Georg Thomalla, (more)
- 1969
- G
- Add If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium to QueueAdd If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium to top of Queue
A mid-1960s TV documentary special (and a New Yorker cartoon before that) was the inspiration for If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium. The film is a likeable satire of "packaged" European tours, where the nonplused tourists are expected to rush from one landmark to another in a breathless 18 days. Ian McShane stars as the amorous tour guide, with Suzanne Pleshette as the American department store buyer he falls for; their romance ends when Pleshette decides that the supposedly worldly McShane is too immature for her. An all-star cast, including Murray Hamilton, Peggy Cass, Pamela Britton, Marty Ingels, John Cassavetes and Vittorio De Sica, pops up in comic cameo roles. Our favorite bit: an American and German tourist, simultaneously regaling their respective wives with wildly divergent accounts of the same wartime confrontation. If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium was reworked in 1987 as a made-for-TV movie, cleverly title If It's Tuesday, It Still Must be Belgium. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Suzanne Pleshette, Ian McShane, (more)
- 1967
Anneliese (Lisolellte Pulver) is the German consulate's daughter who is scheduled to marry rocket scientist Frank Green (Harald Leipnitz). Their ceremony is interrupted when Frank is called away to partake in a top secret mission at the request of NATO. Some humor is thrown in to lighten things up in this routine feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liselotte Pulver, Harald Leipnitz, (more)
- 1965
Husband-and-wife filmmakers Straub and Huillet are best known for their avant-garde films, but they did make a few dramas, though the complexity of this one may turn off some viewers. It is the chronicle of the difficult lives of three generations of relatives from a German family who hold a reunion in 1956 Cologne. There they look back on their troubled history that began when their children were killed during WW I. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1963
This interesting film is set in Berlin's Tempelhof airport during a bad storm. The airport is closed because of the weather, and many travelers are stranded there. Their unscripted, unrehearsed stories are the basis for the film. Most of the tales center around various forms of sex. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karin Huebner, Harald Leipnitz, (more)
- 1961
An odd, incompatible analogy to an ancient legend seems to be the basis for this conventional wartime drama by director Edwin Zbonek. In the legend, an elderly Greek couple were the only people on earth to provide hospitality to the god Jupiter, and he was so appreciative that he granted them one wish -- which was that they be allowed to die together. The god then turns them into two trees whose branches symbolically intertwine. In this drama set in 1944 on a Greek mountainside, Greek partisans are fighting German troops when an elderly couple agrees to give a desperate partisan refuge. They go so far as to protect him from German troops who search their home but come up empty-handed. When the shoe is on the other foot and two German soldiers seek asylum with the same couple, they also shelter them. The results turn out to parallel the "letter" but not the spirit of the legend. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carl Wery, Annie Rosar, (more)
- 1960
The money-making schemes of a group of businessmen are enhanced by call girls. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1959
In this drama, following the retreat of the Germans from Stalingrad, a deserter is sentenced to die. A pastor speaks to the condemned man and learns that the man deserted to protect a Russian widow who was being threatened from both sides. Still, despite the pastor's best efforts, he cannot save the man from execution. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bernhard Wicki, Ulla Jacobsson, (more)
- 1957
This was the first of a trilogy of "Spessart" parodies by director Kurt Hoffmann, each starring Liselotte Pulver in the title role. This particular take-off is concerned with highway bandits and kidnapped nobility. Everything begins when Countess Franziska (Pulver) and her fiancée and entourage are accosted and brought to an inn where they are kept hostage. But the intrepid Countess escapes, reaches home, and then is refused any assistance from her father. He is not going to pay the ransom demand. So she goes back disguised as a man to save the hostages on her own. Circumstances eventually lead to their release, but by then, she and the ringleader have fallen in love. Songs and general enthusiastic hijinks enliven the story, clichéd or not. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liselotte Pulver, Carlos Thompson, (more)
- 1957
Homosexuality is exploited to the tasteless hilt in the 1957 cheapie The Third Sex. The parents of Paul Dahlke can't understand why their son isn't interested in he-man activities. They soon discover that he's-argh! gasp!--gay. Even worse, he's hanging out with a KNOWN PERVERT!!!! There is nothing for it but to "straighten out" the boy, in as cold and brutal a manner as possible. This one must be seen to be believed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ingrid Stenn, Hans Nielsen, (more)
- 1954
Curt Jurgens was still billing himself as Curd Juergens when he starred in the German "reality" drama Gefangene der Liche (Prisoner of Love). Though top billed, Jurgens' role is subordinate to the one played by Annemarie Dueringer, cast as a woman who has just endured eight horrible years in a Siberian prison camp. Returning to her husband (played by Jurgens), Annemarie finds she can no longer truly communicate with the man, nor does he seem sufficiently sympathetic to her suffering. Future director Bernhard Wicki appears as the "other man" in the story, who seems capable of providing the affection and reassurance that Jurgens cannot. Also in the cast is Brigitte Horney as a woman doctor who helps Annemarie make the transition from bondage to freedom. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bernhard Wicki
- 1952
The Merry Wives of Windsor contains one of those complicated, tangled love plots that are typical of Shakespeare's comedies. In this one, lovely Anne Page is the object of affection of three suitors -- Caius, whom her mother favors; Slender, whom her father favors; and Fenton, whom Anne favors. Mr. Page and Mrs. Page plot to have their favored suitor win their daughter's hand, but in the midst of all this comes merry Falstaff. Needing money (as usual), Falstaff hits upon the idea of writing love letters to Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford, thinking that they are both in love with him and will be willing to give him some financial support. The ladies decide to teach the rogue a lesson and arrange a meeting with him. Their husband surreptitiously learn of Falstaff's letters; Mr. Page trusts his wife, but Mr. Ford is suspicious. A series of complications ensue during which Mr. Ford disguises himself to spy upon Falstaff and his wife, and during which the wives put Falstaff in a number of embarrassing situations. At the end, the wives "agree" to meet Falstaff underneath an oak tree one night, and arrange for some fairies to be there to scare him. One of these fairies is to be Anne. Mr. and Mrs. Page plot with Slender and Caius for each to elope with Anne, but they are tricked when she ends up with Fenton. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sonja Ziemann, Camilla Spira, (more)
Heinrich Mann's influential novel Der Untertan serves as the inspiration for this once-banned satirical comedy about a fearful young boy who uses the power of groveling to become of the Kaiser's most trusted lackeys. As a young boy, Diedrich Hesserling was afraid of everything. But the older Diedrich grew, the more he realized how quickly he could advance in life by licking the boots of his superiors and using everyone else as a stepping stone to success. And the technique serves Diedrich well, too, as he quickly advances from beer-guzzling cadet to tyrannical factory owner and, ultimately, right hand man to the Kaiser himself. The Murderers Are Among Us director Wolfgang Staudte helms a biting comedy that, while banned in Germany at the time of its original release, is now considered an important film classic. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Werner Peters, Paul Esser, (more)
This powerful, World War II drama frequently cited as one of the most important films in German history tells the heated tale of a family divided over supporting the Nazis or fighting for the equality of all races and creeds. Originally censored by the Soviets for its unwavering message of pacifism, Rotation finds father turning against son as the troubled family patriarch agrees to print up Nazi fliers in hopes of improving the family finances before being betrayed by his Hitler Youth son. When the bombs stop dropping and the bullets stop flying, father and son are forced to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives despite their troubled past. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
