Jan Hendriks Movies
- 1969
Popular Dutch moppet singer Heintje appears in his fourth film in this sentimental sob story. Heintje's innocent father Klaus (Heinz Reincke) is wrongly imprisoned on a trumped-up embezzlement charge. The boy goes to live with his maternal grandfather, who is cold, distant and wealthy. He has never forgiven Klaus for eloping with his daughter who died shortly after Heintje's birth. The boy melts the stony heart of the callous grandfather and helps track down the villains who sent his father to jail. Klaus falls in love with his beautiful court-appointed attorney. Heintje sings several songs in the film and is reunited with his estranged father who looks forward to marrying his lawyerly lady-love. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Heinz Reincke, Gerlinde Locker, (more)
- 1964
German director Alfred Vohrer often based his films on popular novels written by the likes of Edgar Wallace and Johannes Mario Simmel. British novelist James Hadley Chase's book Pay or Die was adapted to the screen for this Vohrer action feature. After denying a crime syndicate 100,000 pounds on demand, a British millionaire is soon dead. His nephew Don (Gotz George), heir to the fortune, is determined to get his vengeance and begins his own search for the guilty parties. It would seem Don has fortune on his side as the gang boss (Richard Muench) is having problems not only among his men, but also with his woman (Hildegarde Knef). ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Götz George
- 1963
A plane headed for Venezuela crash lands on an uncharted desert isle stranding the surviving passengers. They are a diverse lot. Almost immediately a leadership struggle ensues between a good priest and an evil convict. Both try to win the allegiance of the others. After a chaotic battle good finally overcomes evil and the castaways are saved. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1963
The German The Squeaker is the third film version of the Edgar Wallace mystery novel of the same name. The title character is an omnipotent "fence" who has cornered the diamond-smuggling racket. The fence travels in polite society under the guise of a wealthy philanthropist. A Scotland Yard detective pretends to be an ex-convict in order to infiltrate the Squeaker's gang and to track down the stolen gems. The Squeaker was one of several German Edgar Wallace adaptations of the 1960s, ground out simultaneously with Britain's long-running Wallace B-picture series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Heinz Drache, Barbara Rutting, (more)
- 1962
This film represents the first spaghetti western to gain world-wide notoriety. It chronicles the adventures of Buffalo Bill who was assigned by General Grant to create peace between the settlers and the Indians. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1962
In this adventure, seven women graduate from a ritzy Swiss boarding school and decide to board a cargo boat for a little cruise. They end up partying with the ship's crew. They are docked in South America when the women encounter a young man in charge of a meteorological station on a remote Amazon island. There his father located a downed plane carrying gold bars. The son goes to the mainland to report the find, but unfortunately a mobster overhears his conversation, rushes out to the island and kills the father. The son escapes, but the crook captures some of the young women who fight both for their lives and for their virtue. Fortunately, they are saved by the young man and the rest of the women. In the ensuing struggle, the gangster escapes, but he is then killed by the police. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1961
In this detective film, a Chinese detective breaks up a drug smuggling ring and tries to find the "Daffodil Killer." The drug smugglers had devised the ingenious method of smuggling heroin from Hong Kong in the stems of daffodils. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Christopher Lee, Marius Goring, (more)
- 1961
In this melodrama, a doctor's son, amoral and utterly bored with his life, causes trouble when he drops the 17-year old girl he has been toying with and using to fulfill his dark sexual needs. The devastated girl goes to the doctor's lab assistant for advice and together they decide to exact their revenge. When the louse invites the assistant to one of his parties, she goes, but there she finds herself ignored while he lavishes his attention on a tasty young actress. Later that night, the teenage girl is picked up for hooking. As she is seriously ill, she is rushed to the hospital. A little time passes and the lab assistant once again runs into the lout. This time she feels only pity for his lonely way of life. She tries to help him by suggesting that he visit the hospitalized girl. He refuses and roars off in his car. He is then killed in an accident. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1960
In this psychological thriller an Austrian nobleman tries to stay sane in the face of Nazi torture during World War II. The story is told in flashback after the protagonist is seen at a chess tournament with a champion. He is thrown into jail after the Nazis overran Austria. When he is not being mentally tortured into revealing important secrets, the man is in solitary confinement. To stay sane, he conceals a chess book in his cell. The intricacies of the game help him concentrate. Unfortunately his valiant attempts fail and he breaks down. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Curd Jürgens, Claire Bloom, (more)
- 1960
In this drama, a compassionate liberal judge's belief that young delinquents should be reformed rather than placed in prison is sorely tested by young woman convicted of blackmail. First he sends her to prison for eight months to get her away from her wicked boyfriend. When she threatens suicide, the judge must let her go, but before he does, he convinces his reluctant landlady to give her a job waiting tales at his boarding house. She does okay until the boyfriend reappears and cons her into stealing from another resident. The judge covers for the girl and she begins to fall in love with him. Seeing this, the bad boyfriend attempts to blackmail the judge into revealing that he has been making love to the girl. Instead the judge journeys to the boy's hangout and lectures his gang about reform. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karin Baal
- 1960
Based on an actual post-war murder in Frankfurt, this standard docudrama by Rudolf Jugert is a serious treatment of the story as compared to the earlier, satirical film The Girl Rosemarie. The history of the case of Rosemarie, a hooker, and how she came to be strangled in her apartment is not completely clear. One of the suspects in the case was first charged, later acquitted, but never really free of an aura of culpability. British actress Belinda Lee plays the title role with her voice dubbed over in German. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Belinda Lee, Walter Rilia, (more)
- 1960
The English title of this different type of wartime drama refers to a chess player's attempts to stay sane while Nazi interrogators mentally and psychologically torture him. Werner von Basil (Curt Jurgens) is an Austrian who has been helping the church by smuggling its art treasures out of the country to protect them from the Nazis. When the Nazis roll into Austria, he is on their hit list and after being spotted at a chess tournament, he is picked up and imprisoned. His brutal jailers subject him to long hours of interrogation meant to break down his hold on sanity and accept their own scenario as the truth. When not being brutalized in this manner, von Basil is kept in solitary confinement, with only a hidden chess book to keep his mind focused and logical. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Curd Jürgens, Claire Bloom, (more)
- 1959
This Oscar-nominated satire is an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's comedy Arms and the Man. Commenting sharply upon the pitfalls of nationalism and war, it follows the exploits of a frightened, AWOL soldier who ends up hiding beneath a pretty Bulgarian woman's bed.While her gung-ho fiancé is out fighting the Serbs, the soldier and the woman engage in a witty dialogue about the absurdity of war. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- O.W. Fischer, Ellen Schwiers, (more)
- 1956
Filmed in Germany (where it was released in 1954), Republic's Magic Fire is the life story of controversial 19th century composer Richard Wagner. Alan Badel comes off more as villain than hero as Wagner, which though historically accurate makes it hard for the audience to pull for the central character. Wagner's bizarre relationship with Ludwig II (Gerhard Riedmann), the "mad king" of Bavaria, is downplayed, while the composer's vitriolic anti-semitism is ignored altogther. The women in Wagner's life are played by Yvonne de Carlo, Valentine Cortese and Rita Gam, while Carlos Thompson does the "best friend/severist critic" bit as fellow composer Franz Liszt. Dramatically uneven, Magic Fire is rescued by Erich Wolfgang Korngold's orchestrations of Wagner's most famous operatic and symphonic works. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yvonne De Carlo, Rita Gam, (more)
