Heinz Bennent Movies

The Serpent's Egg, or Das Schlangenei is director Ingmar Bergman's second English language production (The Touch was his first). It is, however, his first completely non-Swedish production, made after his voluntary self-exile from Sweden over taxation issues. Set in Berlin in the early 1920s, it explores the fear and despair the city evokes in Manuela and Abel Rosenberg (Liv Ullmann and David Carradine), two Jewish trapeze artists. The suicide of Manuela's husband (Abel's brother), has stranded them in Berlin. Berlin is shown to already possess the sinister elements of cruelty and anti-Semitism which laid the groundwork for the later Nazi takeover. A series of misadventures gets them sent to a medical clinic for treatment. However, the clinic is actually a site for Nazi-type "racial" experiments on humans, which generally either madden or kill the subjects. Das Schlangenei was savaged by the critics for its improbable-seeming story and more particularly, for casting David Carradine (best known for his earlier appearances in the Kung Fu U.S. television series) in a crucial role. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

After an auto accident transforms their lively and intelligent boy into a dull-eyed paralytic, the parents in this movie discover how to cope with the changes that have been wrought in their lives and in their son's life. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this crime thriller, Morelli (Mel Ferrer) is a writer whose books no longer sell well, at least in part because of his slavish worship of "the classics." His response to this insult to his pride is to kill young women in a horrific manner; he calls it "revolutionary disgust." Bossi (Klaus Kinski) is a newspaper reporter who convinces Morelli to write his memoirs, and he engineers certain of his own affairs to coincide with those of the murdering writer. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Based on a very successful play of the same name by Tankred Dorst, this film tells a story about Norwegian author Knut Hamsun (here played by O.E. Hasse), a Nobel prizewinner for literature who was notorious for having collaborated with the Nazi regime. After the war, rather than hand him over for prosecution, he was sent to a retirement home. A young man, bitter about the war, tracks him down and begins to harass him in various ways. The author handles everything that comes to him with remarkable dignity, which eventually removes some of the taint from his actions. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum marks the directorial debut for actress Margarethe von Trotta, who co-directed the film with her then-husband Volker Schlöndorff. At a costume party, Katharina Blum (Angela Winkler) meets Ludwig Goetten (Jürgen Prochnow ) and spends the night with him. The next morning, he's gone and the police bust into her apartment looking for him with the belief that he is a dangerous terrorist. She is taken into police custody and interrogated by Kommissar Beizmenne (Mario Adorf), who questions her about her every action. Meanwhile, sleazy reporter Werner Toetges (Dieter Laser) makes her story into a scandal in the papers by writing sensational stories about her personal life and portraying her as a criminal in photos. He exaggerates the testimonies of her ex-husband, neighbors, and even her elderly mother who is dying of cancer in an intensive care hospital. With the fear-induced public thinking she is a Communist and terrorist sympathizer, Katharina receives hate mail and personal threats until she is finally driven over the edge. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

This French fantasy makes allusions to children's fairy tales while maintaining a sensuous and erotic focus. A mysterious woman (Catherine Jourdan) steps out of a car in the woods. Her first footstep exactly matches a foot imprint on the forest floor. After she changes her clothes behind a bush, she goes to a nearby house. She makes unsuccessful advances on the house's male housekeeper and spends the next day observing men cutting trees and indulging herself in various ways. While she has been watching, she has been watched and photographed by the logging foreman. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide