Dorothea Wieck Movies
Swiss actress Dorothea Wieck was once a student of Max Reinhardt. From the late '20s through the early '30s, she was a major star of German stage and screen. She is best remembered for her performance in Maedchen in Uniform (1931). The international success of that film led her to Hollywood where she starred in two films, neither of which significantly furthered her career. She returned to Germany and married into a noble family. Following WWII, Wieck was relegated to character roles. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1960
In this psychological thriller an Austrian nobleman tries to stay sane in the face of Nazi torture during World War II. The story is told in flashback after the protagonist is seen at a chess tournament with a champion. He is thrown into jail after the Nazis overran Austria. When he is not being mentally tortured into revealing important secrets, the man is in solitary confinement. To stay sane, he conceals a chess book in his cell. The intricacies of the game help him concentrate. Unfortunately his valiant attempts fail and he breaks down. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Curd Jürgens, Claire Bloom, (more)
- 1958
Douglas Sirk directed this doomed World War II love story, seen from the German side of the war, as filtered through a distinctly late-'50s Hollywood banality. The film is based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the author of the classic World War I anti-war novel All Quiet On the Western Front -- and who makes a cameo appearance in the film as an elderly schoolteacher. The film stars John Gavin as Ernst Graber, a young Nazi soldier home on leave during the height of World War II. While on leave, he falls in love and marries Elizabeth Kruze (Lilo Pulver). With bombs falling all around the young couple, they set up house with a kindly old woman. Then Elizabeth becomes pregnant. But before Ernst can grasp the reality of his becoming a father, he is sent back to the war -- to fight the brutal battle along the Russian front. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Gavin, Liselotte Pulver, (more)
- 1953
Elia Kazan directed this drama inspired by a true story. Karel Cernik (Fredric March) is the leader of a troupe of Czechoslovakian circus performers who have been plying their trade in Eastern Europe for years. When Czechoslovakia falls under Communist rule, the proud and independent Cernik finds that he is no longer free to operate his circus as he sees fit. Many of his performers are conscripted into military service, and his equipment and possessions are declared government property, though the state fails to maintain it properly, or even to give him access to the material to fix it himself. Finally, when Cernik's remaining performers are ordered to insert pro-Communist messages into their acts, he decides that he can take no more and begins making plans to escape to Bavaria during an upcoming tour. Cernik's plans hit a snag, however, when he learns that one of his performers is a spy for the Czech communists, working in collusion with government factotum Fesker (Adolphe Menjou). While politics are making a mess of his professional life, his daughter Tereza (Terry Moore) is complicating matters at home because of her romance with the handsome but unreliable lion tamer Joe Vosdek (Cameron Mitchell), much to the chagrin of both Karel and his wife Zama (Gloria Grahame). The Birnbach Circus troupe, along with a variety of other European carnival performers, appear as themselves in this film, lending the performances a keen authenticity. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric March, Terry Moore, (more)
- 1938
Die Gelbe Flagge (The Yellow Flag) was based on a novel by Fred Andreas, which gained a huge audience when it was serialized in German newspapers in 1937. The immensely popular Hans Albers stars as devil-may-care aviator Peter Diercksen. When a deadly plague breaks out, Diercksen risks his neck on a near-hourly basis to fly in much-needed medicine and supplies. Somehow he pauses long enough to get mixed up with a hostile cannibal tribe -- and even more frightening, a bevy of desirable females. Dorothea Wieck, another top German screen attraction, is cast as a dedicated nurse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hans Albers, Dorothea Wieck, (more)
- 1936
This German film was originally released as Frauen um den Sonnenking, but was retitled to capitalize on the success of the British Private Life of Henry VIII. In keeping with the current German party line in the mid-1930s, French King Louis XIV (Michael Bohnen) is depicted in the most villainous terms possible. According to this film, the misbegotten monarch was responsible for all the woes in 20th-century Europe. Louis is at his most despotic when dealing with the Germans, who are characterized as the next best thing to saints. Thank heaven that his bride Liselotte (Renato Mueller), Princess of Palatinate, realizes what a louse she's married to. Loyal to the edicts of propaganda minister Goebbels, The Private Life of Louis XIV is thinly disguised Nazi propaganda -- and there were far less-subtle films to come. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1934
German actress Dorothea Wieck, who achieved international fame in Maedchen in Uniform, was given a brief shot at Hollywood stardom in 1933 and 1934. Miss Fane's Baby is Stolen stars Ms. Wieck as an actress whose child (Baby LeRoy) is kidnapped. As Wieck takes to the radio to beg for her boy's safe return, the abductors cover their trail by disguising the kid with black hair dye. Farm wife Alice Brady, who gives the impression of being a little light in the belfry, saves the day when she tumbles to the kidnappers' deception. Based on the recent Lindbergh kidnapping, Miss Fane's Baby is Stolen did absolutely nothing to advance the reputation of Dorothea Wieck. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dorothea Wieck, Alice Brady, (more)
- 1933
Dorothea Wieck and Herta Thiele, the stars of the popular and controversial Maedchen in Uniform, were reunited in Frank Wisbar's Anna und Elisabeth. Anna (Thiele) is a peasant girl who suddenly finds she has the power to heal the sick. Soon her shabby rural cottage becomes a shrine for every crippled person in the county -- much to Anna's dismay, because she refuses to believe that she possesses any special gifts and wishes that people would leave her alone. She is eventually invited to live with Elisabeth (Wieck), a wealthy and reclusive invalid. Upon failing to save one of Elisabeth's friends from dying, Anna becomes more withdrawn than ever, refusing to perform any more "miracles" -- a decision that has a devastating effect on Elisabeth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dorothea Wieck, Hertha Thiele, (more)
- 1932
Ein Toller Einfall (A 'Phantastic' Idea) features comic actor Max Adelbert as a "poor rich man," who in spite of his magnificent mansion and priceless possessions hasn't a penny in the bank. Heading to England to negotiate the sale of his mansion, he leaves the place in the care of his nephew Willy Fritsch. In Adelbert's absence, Fritsh transforms the mansion into a hotel, packing in the customers with an elaborate floor show. Naturally, this helps to put Adelbert back on his feet, leading inexorably to a happy ending. Dorothea Wieck and Ellen Schwanecke, previously teamed in the controversial Maedchen in Uniform, portray entirely different characters in Ein Toller Einfall. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Willy Fritsch, Jacob Tiedtke, (more)
- 1931
Inspired by Christa Winsloe's play Gestern und Heute, Maedchen in Uniform is one of the most memorable and moving of the pre-Hitler German talkies. Hertha Thiele plays a new student in an exclusive girls' boarding school. Achingly lonely because she feels deserted by her family, Hertha keeps her distance from the rest of the girls. Persecuted for her solitary stance by principal Emilia Unda, Hertha is drawn to her sympathetic teacher Dorothea Wieck. What starts as a friendship blossoms into a romance. While public revelation of this relationship proves disastrous to both student and teacher, it is ultimately the unforgiving principal Unda who suffers most. Maedchen in Uniform was antiseptically remade in 1958, with some of the frankness but little of the honest eroticism of the original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emilia Unda, Dorothea Wieck, (more)
