Helmut Berger Movies
Best known for his portrayal of anguished souls, sinister villains, and twisted Nazis, Teutonic actor Helmut Berger has earned international acclaim. Born Helmut Steinberger in Salzburg, Austria, but raised in Stuttgart, Germany, Berger learned to act at the University of Perugia in Italy and started out in English and French television commercials. He first worked in movies as an extra until he was discovered by Italian director Luchino Visconti and given the lead in his controversial, powerhouse drama The Damned (1969). From there he found steady employment in European and occasionally American films. In the U.S., Berger spent a season on television nighttime soap Dynasty. Berger also has a busy television career and occasionally directs both TV shows and feature films. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 2010
A retired New York police officer (Roy Scheider, in his final film role) travels to Nuremberg to visit his estranged son, only to find the belated reunion becoming a bitter mission of vengeance. When Joseph's son Ronnie (Scott Cohen) gave up a promising career in law enforcement to marry a pretty artist, his decision tore the family apart. Now, years after turning his back on his only son, Joseph travels to Nuremberg in hopes of reuniting with Ronnie and his family. No sooner does Joseph arrive in Germany, however, than he becomes convinced that the same SS commander who killed his family during World War II has adopted a false name and now lives in the apartment above his son. Realizing that the chances of seeing the former officer stand trial are slim to none, Joseph convinces Ronnie that his neighbor is not whom he appears to be, and together they prepare to exact bloody justice. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman named Gaby with her own secret agenda appears seemingly out of nowhere, sparking Joseph to recall his teenage romance with a heroic Polish girl named Kashka, who narrowly helped him to escape the massacre that claimed his entire family. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Scheider, Scott Cohen, (more)
- 2002
Legendary Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti's life and remarkable cinematic achievements are investigated in depth in Adam Low's 2002 documentary produced by the BBC entitled The Life and Times of Count Luchino Visconti. Born into Italian aristocracy in 1906, Visconti's life was one of discontented listlessness until he took a position on French director Jean Renoir's 1936 film Une Partie de Campagne. This development would greatly influence the young Italian's own entry -- not to mention his entire career -- into filmmaking, starting in 1943 with Ossessione, which was simultaneously his directorial debut and the masterwork that launched the Italian neorealist movement. Many of Visconti's colleagues and contemporaries are interviewed by Low, including such luminaries as Claudia Cardinale, Farley Granger, Franco Zeffirelli, and Helmut Berger. The Life and Times of Count Luchino Visconti premiered at the 2002 London Film Festival in connection with a Visconti retrospective produced by the British Film Institute in 2003. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helmut Berger, Meralda Caracciolo Di Melito, (more)
- 1993
In 1973, (Helmut Berger starred in one of Luchino Visconti's last masterpieces, a filmed biography of the Mad King of Bavaria (1845-1886) entitled Ludwig. In that film, the king's loss of control over his life was seen as resulting from a tragic disparity between the desires of an admittedly peculiar and neurotic man and the needs of the state of Bavaria, which he sold to the nation of Germany in order to raise funds to build his famous castles. In the present film, $Helmut Berger again plays Ludwig. In the story, Ludwig has travelled from Munich to Switzerland with a handsome actor (Max Tidof) who is part of his personal entourage, in order to hear him recite Schiller's "William Tell" in an appropriate setting. Unfortunately, the recitation is a disaster, and the aesthetic monarch is sorely disappointed. Meanwhile, his secretary of state is desperate to get him to pay some attention to more practical matters. Despite plentiful allusions in other quarters to the king's homosexuality, in this film no such inference or imagery appears. Instead, the king is maddened purely by an overstrong attachment to exalted aesthetic notions and ideals. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helmut Berger, Max Tidof, (more)
- 1991
Maca Daracs (Barbara Auer) is a gypsy woman working in Austria, and she has a problem: she doesn't have any legal right to be working there. Furthermore, the police have already tagged her as someone to check up on really soon. If she can't come up with a husband to make it possible for her to stay, she can kiss her "good life" in Austria goodbye. For her, the long hours she spends working in a resort kitchen and the cot she has in a tiny room (and even the effort she must exert to fend of the unwelcome attentions of a hotel manager) are all infinitely better than what she has waiting for her where she came from. Suffice it to say, she's motivated. In this comedy, due to time constraints, she has basically two choices of mates: a paranoid semi-retired arms dealer, and a wealthy and socially prominent politician. Naturally, she hits on the politician first, but he admits that, while he finds her sexually alluring, he's not about to marry her. She tries to woo the nutso arms dealer next, but he soon appears to go genuinely off his rocker, and she's forced to seek him out at a nearby asylum. There, he proves his sanity by choosing to wed her instead of one of the formidable (and undoubtedly mustachioed) asylum matrons. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Auer, Nikolaus Paryla, (more)
- 1991
The real star in this independent movie is the American Southwest, filmed with affection and love by director Hans-Gunther Bucking. In the story, however, a motorcyclist from the former East Germany has cherished the dream of joining the gigantic annual motorcyclists' gathering in Oatman, Arizona. He is young and doesn't speak more than a few words of English. He makes his way from Los Angeles through the Southwest, accompanied by an addled Austrian he meets on the road, who is a video photographer constantly on the lookout for some kind of disaster to film so that he can make a fortune peddling it to CNN. Other eccentrics and locals enliven his journey, and some of the film's amusing moments feature the boy's encounters with such bewildering and typically anarchic American phenomena as a Pepsi machine which sells Coke. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helmut Berger
After a break of more than 15 years, director Francis Ford Coppola and writer Mario Puzo returned to the well for this third and final story of the fictional Corleone crime family. Two decades have passed, and crime kingpin Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), now divorced from his wife Kay (Diane Keaton), has nearly succeeded in keeping his promise that his family would one day be "completely legitimate." A philanthropist devoted to public service, Michael is in the news as the recipient of a special award from the Pope for his good works, a controversial move given his checkered past. Determined to buy redemption, Michael and his lawyer B.J. (George Hamilton) are working on a complicated but legal deal to bail the Vatican out of looming financial troubles that will ultimately reap billions and put Michael on the world stage as a major financial player. However, trouble looms in several forms: The press is hostile to his intentions. Michael is in failing health and suffers a mild diabetic stroke. Stylish mob underling Joey Zaza (Joe Mantegna) is muscling into the Corleone turf. "The Commission" of Mafia families, represented by patriarch Altobello (Eli Wallach) doesn't want to let their cash cow Corleone out of the Mafia, though he has made a generous financial offer in exchange for his release from la cosa nostra. And then there's Vincent Mancini (Andy Garcia), the illegitimate and equally temperamental son of Michael's long-dead brother Sonny. Vincent desperately wants in to the family (both literally and figuratively), and at the urging of his sister Connie (Talia Shire), Michael welcomes the young man and allows him to adopt the Corleone name. However, a flirtatious attraction between Vincent and his cousin, Michael's naïve daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola) develops, and threatens to develop into a full-fledged romance and undo the godfather's future plans. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, (more)
- 1990
Famed actor Helmut Berger directed this nondirectional, experimental film, which focuses on the improvisational conversations of three of life's more clueless individuals: a would-be suicide, a bank robber, and a first-time visitor to Vienna. The film also features a variety of odd visual juxtapositions. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hans-Peter Hallwachs, Helmut Berger, (more)
The demented Dr. Flamand (Helmut Berger) and his beautiful but deadly assistant Nathalie (Brigitte Lahaie) lure unsuspecting victims in this horror feature. The doctor uses the young skins of his victims to perform plastic surgery on his disfigured sister. Telly Savalas is Hallen, the New York businessman who hires private detective Sam Morgan (Chris Mitchum) to find his missing fashion model daughter Barbara (Caroline Munro). A sadistic Nazi doctor (Anton Diffring) and a chainsaw/power tool psychosexual tormentor are called in by the devious Dr. Flamand to join in the fun. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helmut Berger, Brigitte Lahaie, (more)
- 1988
Rudi (Levin Kress) is a 17-year-old lost in the fantasy world of Vienna. Every woman looks like Brigitte Bardot to him, and he and his pal Manfred (Fritz Karl) decide to travel to St. Tropez to offer protection for the sex goddess. He is pressed by the local Young Socialists to make a propaganda film, but Rudi and Manfred are easily sidetracked by their amorous adventures. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Levin Kress, Fritz Karl, (more)
- 1988
In this mystery, Julien Lerner (Helmut Berger) is haunted by his nightmare of a woman being strangled to death at an aquarium. While traveling to work one morning, he sees the woman he dreamed about and follows her into a bar. He loses track of her but sees the man who murdered her in the dream. Julien becomes obsessed with the characters, quits his job and moves into a fleabag hotel to be near the prostitute Bichette (Sylvie Orcier). He goes from being a respectable businessman to becoming another one of the strange and mysterious characters in the seedy waterfront dive. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helmut Berger, Sylvie Orcier, (more)
- 1986
Julia and Romeo are two disenchanted lovers who want to break up but are unwilling to suffer the pain. After a nasty fight, Romeo storms off and unsuccessfully vents his frustration with a black prostitute. While visiting the ramshackle brothel, he sees a strange man, who may be a government official, handing over a huge wad of money. Later, he and Julia reunite and go to an upscale golden anniversary party. There a handsome American flirts with Julia. After yet another row, Romeo and Julia retire to the balcony for a love scene. Unfortunately, their making up is interrupted by a sudden power outage. When the lights go back on, Romeo finds the knifed corpse of the party's hostess at his feet. Naturally, he's accused of the crime, but before the other partygoers can get him, he and Julia flee into the Berlin summer night. Their strange series ensuing adventures comprise the rest of the film. This low-budget debut of German director Helmut Berger (not to be confused with the actor Helmut Berger) was shot in grainy black and white and is alternately known as Du Mich Auch and So What? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anja Franke, Dani Levy, (more)
- 1985
In this slow-paced thriller set just before D-Day in Paris, Gus Lang (Ed Harris) is an American agent who has to make sure a captured U.S. officer is not forced to divulge the secret of the Normandy invasion. Since audiences know the invasion worked, the success of Gus Lang's espionage forays into Nazi officialdom, and the French resistance appears to be a foregone conclusion. At least Paris provides an excellent backdrop for his undercover work, both with the attractive Claire Jouvet (Cyrielle Claire) and the less-attractive Nazi military. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ed Harris, Horst Buchholz, (more)
- 1983
Catalan director Antoni Ribas spent three years creating an epic in three parts, about three days in June, 1917 - a triple play that is successful in this first segment, handling the many factions active and bubbling over in Spain in 1917. The monarchy of Alfonso XIII was weakening so rapidly that he would leave the country permanently in 1931, Catalan nationalists were demanding independence for Catalonia, labor initiatives were in sympathy with the principles that stoked the Russian revolution, anarchists were shouting to be heard, and the military was not exactly a united front. The two leads in this story of an unstable nation in turmoil are a dedicated labor leader and a reserved army lieutenant. Action on all social levels - from the opera to the ghetto - keeps the drama moving at an interesting and fast pace. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helmut Berger
- 1982
Several criminal lawyers reunite every year in the Swiss mountains to entertain themselves with fake trials and murder mysteries. At one year's party, an unwitting American becomes part of the game. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- 1982
A hunting party arrives at a lodge in the Tatra mountains in Slovakia, near Hungary (the director of this film, Karoly Makk is Hungarian), where one woman (Barbara Sukowa) in the party had "accidentally" shot and killed her first husband some time ago. She has returned with her new mate (Mel Ferrer), very rich from inheriting her first husband's fortune, and she greets her former lover Boris (Helmut Berger) who is a game warden in the area. Boris was the only witness to the earlier shooting, and now history threatens to repeat itself as Boris and the new husband enter into an antagonistic relationship that begins to escalate. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Sukowa, Mel Ferrer, (more)
- 1982
Susanne (Angelika Domroese) has her hands full with a mother who does not leave her in peace, a daughter who ignores her, an unsatisfactory lover, and a few women friends who are not doing much better than she is. Into this vale of emotional ennui enters an attractive young man -- suggesting that life might become more interesting at last. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angelica Domröse, Günter Lamprecht, (more)
- 1980
The wages of heroin on body, mind, and spirit are compassionately portrayed in this drama by Massimo Pirri. Without hammering out a message or moralizing, Pirri shows his protagonists facing the daily challenge of obtaining a fix at any cost. Marco (Helmut Berger) used to be a school teacher, but now he and his lover Pina (Corinne Clery) live in a junkyard in an abandoned bus. Gangsters and other violent lowlifes show up now and again to make their life even more of a living hell. On a typical day, the pair go to Marco's pusher's house, and while he shoots up in one room Pina may be providing sexual favors in another for cash or drugs. There is nothing too base or dangerous to do if it will provide another fix. The duo will hook children on drugs, sell out friends, and even steal from each other as death patiently waits in the wings for its cue. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helmut Berger, Corinne Clery, (more)
- 1979
"Thou shalt not kill" is the fifth of the ten commandments handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai. In this movie, Bernhard and Leo Redder (Helmut Berger and Peter Hooten), who have grown up in an abusive family, escape into the streets at the earliest opportunity. In the Germany of the 1920s, especially in the Ruhr valley, the people they wind up hanging out with are members of radical political groups, especially the Nazi Stahlhelm and Freikorps organizations. They become involved in Nazi excursions and become wanted men for their involvement in robberies and murder. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helmut Berger, Peter Hooten, (more)
- 1979
Set in 1919, this confusing, slow-paced, labyrinthian political drama focuses primarily on the confrontation between two military leaders, Konrad von der Berg (Franco Nero) and Erich von Lehner (Helmut Berger). The implication is that the outcome of their meeting will determine whether Germany will be dominated by the Nazis or not. As the two men confront each other in a deserted military camp, they display a wide range of emotions and a seemingly unflagging ability to talk. Flashbacks reveal the history of their relationship. In the end, one destroys the other but then he has to go back and face the rising Nazi menace. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Franco Nero, Helmut Berger, (more)
