Joe Stoeckel Movies
- 1959
This light romantic comedy features Toni Sailer, an Alpine skiing gold medalist (three golds in the 1956 winter Olympics) in his film debut. He would continue to work in a handful of films over the next two decades. In this story, a group of twelve attractive young women go out on a ski tour and encounter a talented police inspector (Sailer). While the inspector is saddled with the job of breaking up a ring of smugglers, one of the twelve women turns out to be a more serious romantic interest than the other eleven. A police chief (Ernst Waldbrunn) provides a few laughs, and Sailer gets to ski. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Toni Sailer, Gunther Philipp, (more)
- 1955
This comic mix-up features a con man's accomplice as he puts the make on a furrier, and the furrier tries to turn the tables on them. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1954
The village elders must make a decision to ban one of their own for "misconduct," but everyone is reluctant to make the decision. A hilarious story about the cover-up of romantic entanglements. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1951
This German presentation features a film company that turns this town on it's ear. Cowboy's in Lederhosen? ~ All Movie Guide
- 1949
This fictional video tells about the village elders trying to break up a romance by putting on airs of moral superiority, while trying to cover up their own misdeeds. This is German only. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1937
Xavier Rossmair (Joe Stockel) is a ruddy-faced, good-hearted rural innkeeper who hopes to improve the local tourist trade. With several of his rustic friends, Xavier organizes a theatrical troupe, intending to put on plays for the entertainment and edification of big-city visitors. Alas, the members of the troupe become hopelessly stage-struck, and before long all of them are drawing up plans to leave the community and head to Berlin for fame and fortune. The would-be actors are finally convinced to stay put by a series of unexpected romances and an even more unexpected "mass marriage." Though German through-and-through in conception and execution, Spiel auf der Tenne (The Play on the Tenne) contains enough recognizable truths to appeal to an American audience. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kurt Meisel, Fritz Kampers, (more)
- 1936
Du bist Mein Gluck (You Are My Joy) was the third starring feature for the great Operatic tenor Beniamino Gigli. Gigli's imposing presence and splendid singing notwithstanding, the film is dominated by Isa Miranda in a dual role. After deserting her husband to shack up with Mario Monti (Gigli), Bianca Scarpa (Miranda) returns home years later to beg for custody of her child, only to be throw out into the street. Years later, the child has grown up into a beautiful young woman and an excellent dancer (Miranda plays both mother and daughter). Feeling guilty about causing so much family dissension, Monti tries to arrange for a reconciliation between Bianca and her daughter. The musical highlights in Du bist Mein Gluck feature such operatic luminaries as Hildegarde Ranczak, Maria Cornelius, and Ludwig Weber. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Beniamino Gigli, Isa Miranda, (more)
- 1936
Also known as Morality, this German comedy makes light of the hidebound and hypocritical moral standards of the 1890s. Disturbed by the popularity of French can-can dancer Ernina Lamponne (Fita Benkhoff), a group of outraged German citizens organize the "Society for Raising the Standard of Morality." They enlist the aid of a local Princess (Roma Bahn), who considers Lamponne a threat to her own love life. The Society's noble purpose proves to be a sham when Lamponne uncovers several skeletons in several local closets. Moral was based on a stage play by Ludwig Thoma. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- G.H. Schnell
- 1936
Diener Lassen Bitten (Dinner is Served) was adapted from a stage comedy by Toni Empekoven. When low-born British whiskey manufacturer James Potter (Joe Stoeckel) purchases stately Castle Bluehill, he sends his snootily aristocratic neighbors into an uproar. It is especially galling when the bluebloods are forced to treat Potter's new wife Henriette (Fita Benkhoff), formerly the Castle Bluehill's housemaid, as an equal. The subsequent romance between Potter's daughter Mary (Rose Stradner) and Lord Spiller (Josef Eichheim) seems doomed thanks to the snobbery of the bluebloods, but the Potters' faithful servants -- most of them old pals of Henriette -- come to the rescue. The "democratic" aspects of the storyline are rather surprising, considering that the film was produced during the Hitler regime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Herbert Hübner, Gertrud de Lalsky, (more)
- 1936
Herman Speelmans plays the title character in the German comedy Ein Ganzer Kerl (A Regular Fellow). The plot is hardly new: young go-getter Karl Grosse (Speelmans) bluffs his way into a big-time business firm, rescuing the organization from bankruptcy with his brash, bold new ideas. He also wins the boss' daughter, played by Lien Deyer. But for its setting, a German sausage factory, and the Teutonic character names, Ein Ganzer Kerl could have been a typical get-rich-quick Hollywood comedy, ideally suited for the likes of James Cagney or Robert Young. Like many German comedies of the 1930s, Ein Ganzer Kerl was designed to keep the viewer's minds off their problems, so all temptations to propagandize on behalf of the Third Reich are avoided. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Stoeckel, Erika Glaessner, (more)
- 1933
There was nothing sly or subtle about the German S.A.-Mann Brand: The film set out to "glorify" the Third Reich, and succeeded spectacularly so far as pro-Hitlerites were concerned. S. A. stands for "Sturm-Abeling," or "Storm Troopers," the Nazi elite who are depicted as gods on earth in this 85-minute political tract. Opposing the heroic, clean-limned storm troopers are a band of scurrilous communists, every one of them a rat or a louse or both. The film's climax finds a 14-year-old Hitler Jugend nobly taking a bullet to save a comrade, thereby providing the story with a "Horst Wessel"-style martyr. For American consumption, the more virulent anti-Semitic sequences in S.A.-Mann Brand were removed, but the bitter taste still remained. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Otto Wernicke, Elise Aulinger, (more)
