Barbara Lass Movies

In this informative and measured docudrama, director Margarethe von Trotta (who inherited the project from the late Rainer Werner Fassbinder) relates the life and times of Rosa Luxemburg. Von Trotta based her film on historical research and some of the more than 2,000 letters Rosa Luxemburg wrote during her active life. Luxemburg was a leader of both the German and Polish Socialist parties who advocated an anti-colonialist and pacifist stance on the issues of her day. This drama opens with a shocking prison scene: Rosa is set up for a mock execution while other prisoners are murdered around her. She is eventually released from prison to continue writing, talking, traveling, and exhorting others to join in the Socialist movement. Her lovers, her friends, and historical VIPs wend their way through her life year by year as she fulfills her destiny. Imprisoned on more than one occasion, Rosa did not escape her political enemies; she was assassinated on a January night in 1919 while walking with her friend Karl Liebknecht, who was also murdered. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-television courtroom drama, a modern Bluebeard with multiple lovers has been charged with the murder of one of them, a prostitute. He pleads not guilty, and then one witness after the other gives so much evidence out of sequence that it is a probable cause for swearing off jury duty for the rest of one's life. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's adaptation of a late 19th-century novel by Theodor Fontane is an austere period piece that may be the least characteristic of the German director's films. The titular heroine, played by Fassbinder regular Hanna Schygulla, is a 17-year-old girl forced into a loveless marriage with an old count. Living as the aristocrat's trophy wife, Effi endures her provincial existence unhappily. Her circumstances lead to a brief affair with a young lieutenant that attracts the attention of the townspeople, but not her unsuspecting husband's. Years later, however, the count discovers the love letters between his wife and her lover. As dictated by convention, he challenges the lieutenant to a duel and throws his wife out of their home. The shamed Effi is forced to live by herself, shunned by society and spurned by her family. Effi eventually returns to her unsympathetic parents, who reluctantly take in their disgraced daughter. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide

Konrad Johannsen (Curt Jurgens) is the World War II submarine commander who made a pact with God. He agreed to become a priest if he is saved from the sinking sub. After the war, he becomes a priest in the Reeperbahn district, a seamy section of Hamburg plagued by sex, drugs and rock & roll. The local criminals seek to drive him out and employ a prostitute in an attempt to make him fall from grace and give in to the pleasures of the flesh. Konrad avoids temptation as he deals with the villains, saves fallen women and rescues fishermen is distress. Above all, he keeps his promise to God for saving his life during the war. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This Italian James Bond takeoff stars Helmut Lange as a girl- and gadget-happy secret agent. His mission is to retrieve a laser device from the bad guys and claim it for his own country. Barbara Lass, the unforgettable star of Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory, is the woman in the case. The chase sequences are fun to watch, but the one-line quips lose a lot in the translation. Serenade for Two Spies gained its greatest American exposure in "Late Show" TV packages of foreign secret-agent capers of the late 1960s, hastily assembled to cash in on the Bond craze. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Several internationally known directors contributed to this generally adept and compelling series of five brief vignettes on love and its many ramifications. François Truffaut starts things off with a story of innocent love between a young man in his mid-teens and a slightly older woman. Renzo Rossellini continues in sketch two about a tough mistress who keeps her lover on a short tether. Shintaro Ishihara renders the only violent episode -- that of a disturbed young worker who becomes a real lady-killer. Marcel Ophüls (son of the late and great Max Ophüls) directs an upbeat tale about a journalist who accepts the responsibilities of marriage and fatherhood when a brief fling with a woman ends in a pregnancy. The last vignette, directed by the well-known Polish helmer Andrzej Wajda, is about a brave act by a young soldier whose deed gains him the admiration of a woman, but the response from other men his age is something different. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A school for wayward girls is plagued by mysterious attacks by a strange beast. This low budget, melodramatic horror film has several shadowy characters who are suspected of being werewolves. The girls really are wayward as they wander off into the nearby forest every time the moon is full. A wolf, a girl, and three men meet their demise at the claws of the unknown throat ripper. Terror grips the campus as the search continues for the murderous monster. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

As the title of this Polish seriocomedy indicates, all Ewa (Barbara Kwiatowska) wants is a good night's sleep. Newly arrived in a medium-sized city, farm girl Ewa shows up too early to set up residence in her school dormitory. With nary a penny to her name, she wanders the streets of the city in the dark of night, hoping to find temporary sleeping quaters. In the course of her ramblings, she meets all manner of eccentric characters, and briefly runs up against provincial bureaucracy when the local constabulary assumes that she's a prostitute. Ewa Chce Spac proved to be a critical and audience favorite at film festivals from Czechoslovakia to San Francisco. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide