Herbert Berghof Movies

After a seven-year absence from the small screen, NYPD detective Theo Kojak (Telly Savalas) made a comeback in the TV-movie The Belarus File (originally Kojak: The Belarus File). Adapted from John Loftus' best-selling spy novel The Belarus Secret, the film teams Kojak with federal agent Dana Sutton (Suzanne Pleshette). Following a labrynthine trail of evidence, the two investigators uncover a conspiracy that dates back to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in the early 1940s. Max Von Sydow and Herbert Berghof guest star. Though Kojak himself is largely superfluous to the proceedings, the producers hoped that The Belarus File (premiere date: February 16, 1985) would serve as the launching pad for a weekly Kojak revival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Seven years after the cancellation of the CBS TV series Kojak, the network attempted to revive the property with this adaptation of John Loftus' novel The Bellarus Secret. Telly Savalas returns to the role of lollipop-sucking New York police detective Lt. Theo Kojak, with George Savalas, Vince Conti, and Mark B. Russell likewise reprising their Kojak characters of Stavros, Rizzo, and Saperstein (conspicuous by his absence was Kevin Dobson as Bobby Crocker, who had by this time signed on as a regular on Knot's Landing). This time around, Kojak tried to solve the murders of three elderly Russians, who may or may not have been Nazi war criminals. The answer to the mystery lay in "The Belarus File," a top-secret document in the possession of the State Department. At first stymied by the government's lack of cooperation, Kojak receives unexpected assistance from compassionate bureaucrat Dana Sutton (Suzanne Pleshette). Originally telecast February 16, 1985, Kojak: The Belarus File (aka The Return of Kojak) did not immediately spark a wholesale Kojak revival, though the property did return to TV on an irregular basis as a component of the ABC "Mystery Movie" in 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Obviously a labor of love for all concerned, Those Lips, Those Eyes is set in the 1950s. Pre-med student Thomas Hulce takes a job as a prop boy at an Ohio summer-stock theatre. His ineptitude nearly costs him his job, but Hulce is protected by Frank Langella, the troupe's leading man. Langella's character is instantly recognizable to anyone who's ever worked in community or summer theatre: possessed of more charm than talent, he is a "star" only so long as he remains a big fish in a small pond. While any other film might turn this character into a loser or villain, Langella emerges as the most likeable person in Those Lips, Those Eyes, especially when he orchestrates a romance between Hulce and chorus dancer Glynnis O'Connor. Almost as good as Langella, though not quite as lovable, is Jerry Stiller as Hulce's abrasive father. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This TV movie was the longest--and dullest--of the three filmizations of George Brewer Jr. and Bertram Block's play Dark Victory. Elizabeth Montgomery stars as a successful TV producer (an heiress in the original play) who suffers from headaches. Her doctor (Anthony Hopkins) knows that the ailment is an incurable brain tumor, but at first he keeps this information a secret from the producer. When she learns the truth, she is bitter and resentful, but before walking gently into the Hereafter she falls in love with and marries the doctor. The 1939 Bette Davis Dark Victory wrapped this up in 106 minutes; the 1963 Susan Hayward remake, Stolen Hours, lasted only 100 minutes. Elizabeth Montgomery's Dark Victory is stretched out over two and one-half hours...and when it's all over, she's just as dead as Davis and Hayward (The Montgomery version was later pared down to 90 minutes, only a minor improvement). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This hilarious parody pokes fun at Charlie Chan movies and features Zero Mostel as an inscrutable Asian detective, Inspector Hoku, who must keep international spies from getting hold of a newly developed robot. In-jokes abound and slapstick mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In 1963, this colossal and opulent $60 million spectacular was epic in every sense of the word -- an epic investment, an epic in the annals of Hollywood gossip, and, ultimately, an epic flop that nearly dragged 20th Century Fox down the Nile along with Cleopatra's barge. Handsomely mounted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who replaced Rouben Mamoulian as director after six days of shooting), the drama follows the eighteen tumultuous years that led to the founding of the Roman Empire. Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor) meets up with Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison) and plans to lure Caesar to her boudoir in order to forge an alliance with Rome so that she may hold on to her Egyptian empire. When Caesar is stabbed to death in the Roman Senate, Cleopatra is left without an ally, and Egypt is up for grabs. When Roman general Mark Antony (Richard Burton) comes along, she seduces him in order to make him over into her new protector. But, under the charms of Cleopatra, Mark Antony is reduced from a an awesome and dominating general to a sniveling, drunken wimp. At the Battle of Actium, Mark Antony is defeated and Cleopatra withdraws her troops, dooming Mark Antony and his army. With Egypt in peril, Antony and Cleopatra, the doomed lovers, meet each other for the last time, as the enemy forces close in. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Assignment - Paris is based on a serialized Saturday Evening Post yarn by Paul and Pauline Gallico. The film stars Dana Andrews as reporter Jimmy Race, assigned to the Paris bureau of the New York Herald Tribune. Race makes the acquaintance of French journalist Jeanne Moray (Marta Toren), who is forced to suppress a white-hot news story about an impending Iron Curtain political conspiracy because she lacks proof. At great risk to himself, Race heads to Budapest to ferret out the facts, sometimes right under the noses of the communist "damage control" experts. George Sanders co-stars as editor Rick Strang, who dispatches Race on his fact-finding mission--partly because of his dedication to truth, and partly because he has designs on the gorgeous Jeanne himself. One of the more palatable anti-Red tracts of its era, Assignment - Paris makes excellent use of authentic Parisian and Hungarian locations. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A husband-and-wife scientist team (Peter Graves, Andrea King) are experimenting with a "hydrogen tube" invention (which he got from a missing German scientist, lost in the collapse of the Reich), when they get signals back from what appears to be Mars. The culture-shock of that event is serious enough, and the couple and their family are suddenly thrust into the spotlight. But then they begin to translate the increasingly complex messages (which started out as mathematical equations) that they receive back, and find that Mars is a perfect world, a true Utopia, and that the messages are quoting Scripture -- and the inevitable conclusion is that God is speaking from Mars. Soon a religious revival starts to spread across the globe. What they don't realize is that the messages are a very calculated fraud, being engineered by a Communist operative (Marvin Miller) and carried out by the scientist (Herbert Berghof) who invented the hydogen tube, and who now has an even more sinister agenda of his own. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide