Gert Fröbe Movies
The corpulent, ruddy-faced Gert Frobe familiar to filmgoers of the 1960s bore so little resemblance to the thin, gawky Gert Frobe of the late 1940s and early 1950s that one might think that the German-born Frobe was two different people. A violinist and stage designer in his 20s, Frobe turned to acting in the 1930s, interrupting his career for war service. His membership in the Nazi party caused him no end of difficulty after the war until it was confirmed that not only had Frobe not engaged in any anti-Semitic activities, but he had also hidden several Jews from the Gestapo. In the immediate postwar years, Frobe established himself as a milquetoastish comic actor in such German films as Berliner Ballad (1948) and Der Tag vor der Hochzeit (1952). He switched to movie villainy after gaining a great deal of weight in the mid-1950s. Gert Frobe's best-known role was the megalomanic title character in the 1965 James Bond film Goldfinger, in which his thick Teutonic accent was dubbed over by a British actor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1953
Elia Kazan directed this drama inspired by a true story. Karel Cernik (Fredric March) is the leader of a troupe of Czechoslovakian circus performers who have been plying their trade in Eastern Europe for years. When Czechoslovakia falls under Communist rule, the proud and independent Cernik finds that he is no longer free to operate his circus as he sees fit. Many of his performers are conscripted into military service, and his equipment and possessions are declared government property, though the state fails to maintain it properly, or even to give him access to the material to fix it himself. Finally, when Cernik's remaining performers are ordered to insert pro-Communist messages into their acts, he decides that he can take no more and begins making plans to escape to Bavaria during an upcoming tour. Cernik's plans hit a snag, however, when he learns that one of his performers is a spy for the Czech communists, working in collusion with government factotum Fesker (Adolphe Menjou). While politics are making a mess of his professional life, his daughter Tereza (Terry Moore) is complicating matters at home because of her romance with the handsome but unreliable lion tamer Joe Vosdek (Cameron Mitchell), much to the chagrin of both Karel and his wife Zama (Gloria Grahame). The Birnbach Circus troupe, along with a variety of other European carnival performers, appear as themselves in this film, lending the performances a keen authenticity. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric March, Terry Moore, (more)
- 1948
Long before he played the corpulent Goldfinger, German actor Gert Froebe was a scarecrow-skinny comedian. In Berliner Ballade, Froebe makes his screen debut as Otto, a feckless Everyman who tries to adjust to the postwar travails of his defeated nation. Stymied by black-market profiteers and government bureaucrats, Otto begins fantasizing about a happier life at the end of that ever-elusive rainbow. Director R. A. Stemmle doesn't have to strive for pathos: he merely places his gangly star amidst the ruins of a bombed-out Berlin, and the point is made for him. Filmed in 1948, Berliner Ballade was later released in the U.S. as The Berliner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
