Wolfgang Völz Movies
- 2008
The German-language CG-animated fantasy Urmel voll in Fahrt concerns a winged baby dinosaur who inhabits an island in the middle of the ocean with a group of loveable animal friends. Everything changes, however, when a dimwitted dinosaur hunter turns up and lures the creature back to captivity (via his luxury yacht) with rather sinister plans for his discovery. In time, the hunter also receives a surprising little visit from a ghostly friend. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
Based on a series of Dutch children's books by Hans der Beer, the animated feature The Little Polar Bear is a German production made up of three separate stories about polar bear cub Lars. In the first, Lars meets and befriends a seal named Robby. In the second, he is stranded on an island and makes friends with a hippo, an eagle, and a killer whale. In the third, he and his friends plot to crash a ship that has been stealing all the fish out of the sea. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- 1969
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Based on the popular children's books by Astrid Lindgren, this lively Swedish adventure begins when Pippi Longstocking receives a message in a bottle that her father, a sea captain, has been captured by South Seas pirates. Along with her best friends and her pet monkey, Pippi steals a hot air balloon and sets off to save him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1966
Funeral in Berlin was the second of three films based on the Harry Palmer novels by Len Deighton. As he did in The Ipcress File, Michael Caine stars as Palmer, Deighton's bespectacled, somewhat disreputable British secret agent. In the manner of Graham Greene's The Third Man, Palmer is dispatched to Berlin to look into the highly suspicious defection of Soviet colonel Stok (Oscar Homolka). It is giving nothing away to reveal that Stok's death is a sham, and that Palmer is expected to engineer the "corpse"'s defection. To reveal any more, however, would be giving the game away. Michael Caine would portray Harry Palmer a third time in Billion Dollar Brain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Caine, Paul Hubschmid, (more)
- 1964
Erich Kastner's oft-filmed children's story Emil and the Detectives was given the Disney treatment in 1964. Though the plot is still set in Berlin, the younger characters have been extensively Americanized, none more so than the title character (played by Bryan Russell) and aspiring teenaged detective Gustav (Roger Mobley). Travelling by bus to visit his aunt, Emil loses an envelope of money to sneak thief Grundeis (Heinz Schubert). The boy enlists the aid of a gang of young detective-story aficionados, led by Gustav, to locate the thief. This leads to a perilous adventure when it turns out that Grundeis is in league with an erudite master criminal known as The Baron (Walter Slezak), who is planning a major heist. The film waves uncertainly between pure-and-simple kiddie entertainment and a dead-serious "caper" effort; surely some of the worldly, cynical dialogue spoken by Walter Slezak went way over the heads of Disney's 8-to-14-year-old target audience. Still, the performances are lively and the Berlin locations well chosen. Emil and the Detectives wasn't as successful as Disney's previous release Mary Poppins, but it managed to make back its cost overseas. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Slezak, Bryan Russell, (more)
- 1962
Director Ladislao Vajda has another success on his hands with this crime thriller about a beleaguered lightship (a ship that functions like a lighthouse to warn vessels about unseen hazards). Capt. Freytag (James Robertson-Justice) is in charge of the lightship when three bank robbers board the vessel and take it over by force. They want to hijack the ship to Denmark, but the captain is unwilling to comply. He knows that if the lightship leaves it might mean disaster and fatalities for other vessels that depend on it so as not to go aground on the sand bars here. The thieves terrorize the crew, but Freytag is determined to hold his own against their demands. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Robertson Justice, Dieter Borsche, (more)
- 1961
Mrs. Cheney (Lilli Palmer) is a genteel widow whose outward appearances hide her involvement as a thief. With the help of her faithful butler, she steals diamonds from a wealthy matron. When she falls in love with a handsome international playboy, her thoughts quickly change from larceny to love in this light comedy. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lilli Palmer, Carlos Thompson, (more)
- 1955
The classic British stage farce Charley's Aunt is given a Teutonic flavor in this 1956 release. The story is updated and the character names changed, but the plot, about a young man forced by circumstances to dress up as a middle-aged woman, remains intact. Heinz Ruehmann stars as Dr. Otto Dernburg (originally "Lord Fancourt Babberly"), whose friends Charley (Walter Giller) and Ralf (Claus Biederstadt) are expecting female visitors. The girls won't show up without a chaperone, so Otto is inveigled into disguising himself as "Charley's Aunt, from Brazil, where the nuts come from." The comedy of errors and misunderstandings is played to the hilt, with time out for an unexpected musical number. Charley's Tante was one of Germany's biggest film hits of the mid-1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hertha Feiler, Claus Biederstadt, (more)
