Dietmar Schoenherr Movies

One of Germany's most important female directors, Doris Dörrie chose the subject of the universal quest for happiness for the film Bin ich Schön?. Set in Spain and Germany, the film interlaces individual stories of broken hearts and broken dreams with aspirations of new beginnings. On a hot afternoon in Spain, Linda is standing beside the road wearing a thin summer dress and carrying a handbag. A car stops and Werner, a robust-looking German, picks her up. She shows him a note which says, "I am deaf-mute and in need of your help." Werner is touched. As they move off together, Linda throws her handbag out of the window. In a near-by motel, Klaus is on the phone to Munich trying to convince his reluctant girlfriend Franziska to come down to Spain. Linda and Werner have checked into the next room where Werner is asking Linda to hit him with his belt. Plots and subplots intertwine until the film reaches a climax during a religious procession. In an ironic way, the film celebrates life with a message that life is here today and then it's gone. No beginning, no end and enjoy it while you can. Bin ich schön? was screened as part of the New German Films at the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

Filmed on location in Ghana, African Timber concerns dirty work in the lumber industry. Heiner Lauterbach plays the new manager of a West German lumber company. The manager's predecessor has died under mysterious circumstances. The apparent reason for the man's death, which the new manager does not ascertain until he's in too deep, is that the dead man was about to blow the whistle on an illegal mahogany-smuggling operation masterminded by the company's corrupt owners. This is the sort of pessimistic film wherein no good deed goes unpunished. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this frank and open drama about a 1941 Swiss government decree and a man who disobeyed it, the nature and strength of individual protest is luminously etched. Otto Machtlinger (who died shortly after this film was completed from an already-diagnosed fatal illness) plays Tanner, the man who refuses to give up his grazing land for farming purposes. Because imports to Switzerland were cut off at the beginning of World War II, the Swiss government was worried about food supplies. Their solution was to mandate the expansion of farm land, and when Tanner refuses to go along because he knows his grazing pastures are no good for farming, he starts a confrontation with the government which seems impossible to win. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

On February 20th, 1810, French and Bavarian forces killed the Tyrolean rebel leader Andreas Hofer in Mantua, at that time a part of Austria. Hofer had led the Tyroleans in their fight for independence from Bavaria and was betrayed by an insignificant farmer (Lois Weinberger), the betrayal and its effect on the farmer is the subject of this historically-based drama. Director Christian Berger has shot the story emphasizing visual poetics (lines of soldiers moving in seeming slow-motion across the white snow of a mountainside), as well as close-ups to reveal the nuances of subtle emotions as they play across the human face. Whatever the farmer Raffl's motivation -- he is clearly an underdog, overworked, with his labor unrecognized -- he receives no expected reward for his betrayal of Hofer's hiding place, and he has to quickly leave for the city to escape his fellow villagers' wrath. Once in the city and working hard in a factory, Raffl must come to grips with the fact that his identity has changed, and he may have betrayed himself as well as Hofer. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This feature examines the sexual attitudes and practices of Germans for the last 2000 years. The naked barbarians were clothed by Christian missionaries and women relegated to second-class citizens for centuries. Songs and stories relate the invention of the chastity belt, the introduction of syphilis to the country and the wild fluctuation of public attitudes on sex. From the intolerance of the Hitler regime to the decadence of the post-World Wars era, the Teutonic attitudes and mores have changed with the times and were often a measure of political pressure and moralistic rigidity. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In the mid-1960s, Richard Todd starred in two British films based on Edgar Wallace's Sanders of the River. Coast of Skeletons was the sequel to Todd's earlier Death Drums Along the River. Playing insurance investigator Harry Sanders, Todd comes upon an insidious scheme to steal the valuables from the sunken ships insured by Sanders' firm. The mastermind behind the plan is one A. J. Magnus, played by the usually heroic Dale Robertson. Since we know from the get-go that Sanders will be triumphant, suspense is minimal in Coast of Skeletons. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, a father sends his selfish, wealthy daughter to a strict boarding school after she nearly marries a gigolo. The headstrong girl soon escapes to return to her love. During her travels, she meets a man kayaking down the Rhine. She rides with him and together they camp out and float upon the river. Soon all thoughts of her old lover begin drifting away as she falls in love with this new man. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This ever-popular light comedy by Axel von Ambesser was preceded by two other cinematic versions of the same tale, a story about two twins who live in the countryside and are quite opposite in their appeal. Liesel (Liselotte Pulver, who plays both twins) is attractive, smart, and captivating while Susi is not. Obviously, since these are identical twins it is Susi's own predilections that have a negative effect on her appearance. When the first serious, handsome young man shows up on their doorstop and falls for Liesel it would seem that marriage is imminent. Yet the daughters have to bide by their mother's will -- Susi, the least attractive, must marry first. The suitor figures, why not? He can marry her temporarily and then change his mind -- that sounds easy enough. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

An adaptation of John B. Priestley's play, ~Time and the Conways~, this standard drama focuses on the Thorwald family through several years and is distinguished by an excellent comeback performance by Elsabeth Bergner as Frau Thorwald. The family is well-off and contented when a tragedy strikes -- the father is killed in an accident. Frau Thorwald takes over the raising of her children, four girls and two boys with the youngest already fifteen years old. She manages to keep them together in spite of the fact that their economic situation deteriorates after World War I. Never one to look too critically upon her brood, the woman undergoes a moving and gradual transformation as the adult activities of her children bring home the fact that none of them are what she had once imagined. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide