Eva Bartok Movies

Richard Greene stars a British flight officer in Beyond the Curtain, while Eve Bartok costars as a German-born airline stewardess. When the stewardess' plane is forced down over East Germany, she is trapped behind the Iron Curtain due to her alien status. Officer Greene bypasses red tape and political haggling, preferring more direct means of rescuing Bartok. Lucie Mannheim and Marius Goring are on hand to lend the exotic mittel-European accents they'd been using in British films for decades.Beyond the Curtain was based on the novel Thunder Above by Charles F. Blair. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this big-top melodrama, a circus barker gets involved with a lovely-high diver and murders her husband. He beats her, then steals her savings. She ends up dumping him for a photographer, but then goes back for more. He obliges and begins choking her to death. The simpleton strongman comes to her aide, and crushes the barker to death. The high-diver then returns to the photographer. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A wife attempts to help her escaped convict husband and his two cohorts evade capture, but is stopped by love and several twists of fate. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In this newsroom drama, a workaholic editor refuses to take a vacation with his wife. Instead he remains in his office and deals with a series of fascinating stories. They include: four children tossed out of their home, a woman accused of euthanasia, an alcoholic journalist's search for an atomic scientist, and a tragic plane crash. Unfortunately, the editor's wife was supposed to be on that plane. Fortunately, something caused her not to board it. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

David Lean's Madeleine was inspired by a true story that rocked the English legal system to its foundations in the mid-19th century. Told in flashback, the film explains why aristocratic young Scotswoman Madeleine Smith (Ann Todd, then the wife of director Lean) is on trial for murder. The audience is apprised of Madeleine's illicit romance with deceptively charming Frenchman Emile L'Angelier (Ivan Desny), her futile attempts to break off the relationship, her "proper" betrothal to Englishman William Minnoch (Norman Wooland), and the murder by poison of the now-inconvenient L'Angelier. The jury's verdict was as controversial in 1950 as it had been a century earlier. David Lean and scenarists Stanley Haynes and Nicholas Phipps refuse to take sides, permitting the viewers to draw their own conclusions about the notorious Madeleine. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A beautiful criminology student poses as a prostitute to conduct first-hand research on her thesis paper, in the process discovering that a dear friend is a virtual prisoner in Berlin's most elite brothel. Karin is a brilliant student whose good looks give her an added advantage in assuming the role of a prostitute and exploring Berlin's thriving sex industry. Hired posthaste by nefarious Madame Clavius, the pretty blonde sets about gathering information for her thesis when she discovers that her old friend Madeline has been financing her luxurious lifestyle by working as a call girl in the very same brothel. The situation turns sinister when Madeline reveals to Karin that she has fallen in love and longs to start a new life, but any girl who tries to leave Madame Clavius is soon discovered dead. When Madeline admits to considering suicide, Karin hatches a plan for both of them to make a clean break from the brothel and avoid Madame Clavius' deadly wrath. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In this espionage drama, a mild-mannered bank clerk gets caught up in an international spy ring. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A tired-looking Tom Conway plays a private detective who is framed for murder. Eva Bartok, the head of a smuggling, has arranged the frameup. Eva is herself "set up" by the actual killer, unreconstructed Nazi Robert Adair. At this point, Bartok belatedly sides with Conway. Only one of the three above-mentioned actors is still alive at fadeout time: guess which one. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Adapted from the popular British radio serial of the same name, Spaceways is a dual-market science fiction effort, co-financed by England's Hammer Films and America's Lippert Studios. American rocket scientist Stephen Mitchell (Howard Duff) works day and night to realize his goal of sending the first man-made satellite into outer space. Meanwhile, Mitchell's wife Vanessa (Cecile Chevreau) is carrying on an affair with fellow-scientist Crenshaw (Andrew Osborn). Not long after Mitchell discovers this, the satellite is launched ahead of schedule. Since both his wife and her lover have disappeared at the same time, Mitchell is accused of murdering the pair and stuffing their corpses into the spaceship. To prove his innocence, Mitchell volunteers to go up in a second ship with mathematician Lisa (Eva Bartok) to conduct a search of the satellite. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

British private detective Richard Todd is sent to Venice, there to locate and a reward a wartime partisan. Once he arrives, the detective finds himself the quarry of every Venetian cop in sight. Todd soon learns that he's been fingered as a murderer--and that it's just possible he's been framed by the partisan, who has become a desperate criminal. Heavily influenced by The Third Man (49), Assassin is a routine action melodrama spiced by genuine Austrian settings. The film was initially released in Great Britain as Venetian Bird (hmmm...sounds a lot like Maltese Falcon). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi