Ilse Steppat Movies

It wasn't as well received at the box office as the pictures that preceded it or followed it, but Peter Hunt's On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one of the finest of the James Bond movies. James Bond, portrayed here by George Lazenby (in his only performance in the role) has spent nearly two years trying to track down Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas), the head of SPECTRE. He has been taken off the case by his chief (Bernard Lee), an action the pushes him to the point of considering resigning from Her Majesty's Secret Service, just as he opens a possible new avenue of attack on his quarry. Whilst in the field, Bond has chanced to cross paths with the Contessa Teresa Di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), a beautiful but desperately unhappy woman, whom he rescues from one apparent suicide attempt and an embarrassing moment at a casino gaming table -- the Contessa, who prefers to be called Tracy ("Teresa was a saint"), is the daughter of Marc Ange Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti), an industrial and construction magnate and also a crime boss, who is impressed with Bond personally as well as professionally, and would like to see him marry his daughter. Bond is, at first, unwilling to involve himself with a woman -- any woman -- on that level, but Draco's underworld contacts give Bond a vital clue to Blofeld's whereabouts that get him back on the case and hot on the man's trail. Journeying incognito to Blofeld's mountaintop retreat in the Swiss Alps, Bond finds the criminal mastermind posing as a would-be nobleman and also as a philanthropist, running a clinic devoted to the treatment and eradication of allergies. It's all a front for a surprisingly sinister (and scientifically valid) plot for international blackmail that would make any previous Bond villain quake in fear. And in the process of staying alive long enough to have a chance of stopping Blofeld, Bond discovers the Tracy is truly like no woman he's ever known before -- one special enough that he finds himself willing to give up his life as a free-living, free-loving bachelor. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

The Invisible Man, a German science fiction thriller, written, produced and directed by Raphael Nussbaum, is an interesting, if somewhat slow reprise of the classic H.G. Wells novel, The Invisible Man, combined with elements of the famous Dr. Mabuse films, a series based on the Fritz Lang classic The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse about a scientist who can also make himself invisible. In this version, originally titled Der Unsichtbare, two men desperately search for a professor (Has von Borsody) who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. While this German production has some interesting moments, it is derivative and predictable, and fans of the Invisible Man series should stick to the original. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

Polish writer/director Aleksander Ford's Eighth Day of the Week takes an astonishing anti-Communist stance--the first of many that would compel Ford to leave his homeland after a general governmental crackdown on personal expression in 1968. Zbigniew Cybulski and Sonja Ziemann play a married couple who fall through the cracks of Red bureaucracy in Warsaw. The film does not endeavor to preach, merely to present a matter-of-fact glance at how little the individual matters when confronted with mountains of red tape. Upon its completion in 1958, the government refused to allow Eighth Day of the Week to be shown in Poland; it would not been seen anywhere until its European release one year later. According to the editors of Blockbuster Guide to Movies and Video, most existing prints have been dubbed into German. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Der Hauptmann und Sein Held (The Captain and His Hero) is based on a stage play by Claus Hubalek. The Captain, a fellow named Eisenhecker (Ernst Schroder), is an officer in the Germany army during WWII. The "Hero" is feckless 18-year-old private Paul Kellermann (Jo Herbst). Tired of being the company patsy, Kellermann begins jockeying for the Iron Cross. Before long, he is the idol of all his fellow soldiers -- not to mention Captain Eisenhecker. Alas, this doesn't make him a better person, as the rest of the film proves all too well. As in many German films of the period, the humor in Der Hauptmann und Sein Held is often harsh and cruel -- and as such might play better today than it did back in 1955. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This German wartime drama was based on a novel by Hans Scheikart. Set in Berlin in the years between 1933 and 1943, the film relates the tragic story of a "forbidden" marriage between German actor Hans Wieland (Paul Klinger) and his Jewish wife Elizabeth (Ilse Steppat). Despite his country's sanctioned anti-Semitism, Wieland loyally stands by his wife, certain that his own status will protect her from persecution. He finally realizes how horribly wrong he is when the Gestapo pounds on his door, demanding Elizabeth's deportation. Historically important as the first postwar German film to tackle the issue of Hitler's treatment of the Jews, Marriage in the Shadows is otherwise an overlong, sometimes ponderous exercise. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi