Hardy Kruger Movies

It's late 1944, and the Allied armies are confident they'll win the World War II and be home in time for Christmas. What's needed, says British general Bernard Law Montgomery, is a knockout punch, a bold strike through Holland, where German troops are spread thin, that will put the Allies into Germany. Paratroops led by British major general Robert Urquhart (Sean Connery) and American brigadier general James Gavin (Ryan O'Neal) will seize a thin road and five bridges through Holland into Germany, with paratroops led by Lieutenant Col. John Frost (Sir Anthony Hopkins) holding the most critical bridge at a small town called Arnhem. Over this road shall pass combined forces led by British Lieutenant Gen. Brian Horrocks (Edward Fox) and British Lieutenant Col. Joe Vandeleur (Michael Caine). The plan requires precise timing, so much so that one planner tells Lieutenant Gen. Frederick Browning (Dirk Bogarde), "Sir, I think we may be going a bridge too far." The plan also has one critical flaw: Instead of a smattering of German soldiers, the area around Arnhem is loaded with crack SS troops. Disaster ensues. Based on a book by historian Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far is reminiscent of another movie based on a Ryan book, The Longest Day. Like that movie, it is loaded with more than 15 international stars, including Sir Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, Hardy Krueger, Gene Hackman, Maximilian Schell, and Liv Ullman. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide

Bachelor of Hearts stars Hardy Kruger as Wolf, a German exchange student attending Cambridge University. Initially arousing the distrust and disdain of his classmates (WWII was, after all, only thirteen years in the past), the affable Wolf slowly wins them over. He also finds romance in the lovely form of an English miss named Ann (Sylvia Sims)-but only after he has gotten himself in quite a pickle by lining up several dates simultaneously (hence the film's title). Filmed on location at Cambridge, Bachelor of Hearts affords ample screen time to the music of the university's highly regarded Jazz Club. The script was cowritten by Leslie Bricusse, later the composer/lyricist/librettist of such filmusicals as Dr. Dolittle and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally released as The Battle of the Neretva, this sprawling epic is a tribute to the Yugoslav partisan fighters of World War II. Yul Brynner stars as a guerilla leader whose mission in life is to eradicate all Nazis from his homeland (recently revealed instances of Yugoslav collaboration are dispensed with in this uncomplicated actioner). Hardy Kruger costars as Brynner's principle German antagonist. Originally released at 175 minutes, this $12 million spectacular was ruthlessly whittled down to 102 minutes by its American distributors. The resultant film looks like a series of outtakes in search of a story, but the action scenes more than compensate for the overall incoherence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Colin Theile, the Australian Blue Fin stars Hardy Kruger as a taciturn tuna boat captain. Kruger's son, played by Greg Rowe, can't do anything to please his demanding dad. Hoping to prove his worth, Rowe puts his life-and sometimes other lives-on the line. A big box-office hit in Australia, Blue Fin failed to make a dent in the US. Perhaps it would have fared better had it been released after the internationally popular Aussie film Man From Snowy River. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Rest Is Silence, a German-made attempt to update Shakespeare, is one of the best and least self-conscious of this minor genre. As indicated by the title, the film's script is a "mufti" version of Hamlet, with young Hardy Kruger trying to prove that his uncle (Peter van Eyck) has killed his father. Direct references to the Shakespeare original abound, right down to the re-enactment of the crime for the benefit of the Uncle and the periodic appearances of the ghost of the hero's father. Interestingly, this 1960 film was released at the same time as a "straight" German version of Hamlet, made for television and starring Maximillian Schell. The original title of Rest Is Silence was Der Rest Ist Schweigen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The friendship between two rival soldiers provides the basis of this comedy. The tale is set during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The soldiers meet while swimming in the same place. They become friends. When they get out of the water, they accidentally trade uniforms. Together they go to a farmhouse. There they meet an old farmer and his pretty granddaughter. They engage in friendly rivalry for the girl, go for another swim and get their proper uniforms back. They then bid each other adieu and return to their troops. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The action in this comedy is set within a 24-hour period, as unusual events unfold in the lives of two elderly sisters, Else (Elisabeth Bergner) and Hilde (Lilli Palmer). The sisters were living together in the family mansion in Hamburg when Else got tired of that life and hit the streets to make a go of it as a bag lady, collecting enough each week to send a regular five marks to an orphanage in India. Her older sister stayed in the mansion and made sure that Else always had enough to live on, without letting her know about it. One day -- at the beginning of the fateful 24-hour period -- Else gets evicted from her squatter's apartment in West Berlin and after she leaves with her cart and belongings, she makes a stop at the bank to send the weekly money to the orphanage. Fate has it that two thieves complete a bank robbery just as Else is leaving, throwing their loot into a flower truck by mistake -- much to their dismay and to the total ignorance of the truck driver. Meanwhile, back at the mansion, Hilde is right in the middle of a conversation with Harms (Hardy Kruger), her favorite man of the moment, when she is visited by banking representatives that tell her she has lost it all. Her money manager made some bad financial moves and ran her fortune to the ground, killing himself because of it. Else reads about his suicide in the newspaper, and decides she had better go console her sister -- but not alone. She unwittingly takes the two bank robbers with her, along with a street wino, and when she arrives, the bank robbers drop their facade and threaten to blow everything up if they do not get some cash soon. Meanwhile, Hilde's friend Harms is on the way to join them with the original loot from the bumbled morning robbery in his car (it had fallen out of the flower truck and into his vehicle). Soon everyone and the cash are going to be in one place -- a situation rife with possibilities ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a doctor must clear his name after his mistress is murdered. Of course, the married M.D. is the prime suspect in the case as the woman's body was found at the site of their frequent trysts. The media soon sensationalizes the case and the police decide that the doctor will take the fall, regardless of his innocence. Another murder occurs. As a result the doctor is cleared of wrong doing. Unfortunately he must now live within a community that spurns him, and a depressed wife who recently tried to kill herself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This minor 1952 drama resurfaced during the 1989 Berlin Film Festival, and was found to have previously unsuspected historical and artistic merit. At the time it was made, Sybille Schmitz, one of the great movie stars and beauties of the Nazi era, was fading into her final dissipation and scandal-ridden suicide in 1955 (the subject of a later film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Veronika Voss). At the same time, two of her costars in this film, Hardy Kruger and Hildegard Knef, were just beginning to make their presence known. The story in this black and white film in some ways parallels the actor's actual circumstances at the time, and gains resonance from that fact. In the film, Schmitz is a wealthy widow who has grown romantically attached to a band leader who is at least as well known for his seductions as for his music. When her son, Kruger, becomes aware of her impending marriage to this cad, he enlists the help of his tragically ill fiancee (Knef) to unmask this man for the villain he really is. Alas, when the widow's illusions are shattered, her dreams are also, and by the end of the film she is alone and miserable, watching the two young lovers head off "into the sunset." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide