Rainer Brandt Movies
- 1981
Leo Bergert's (Dieter Hallervorden) life is centered around his mania for inventing, and his latest attempt at creating a substitute for gasoline (driven, no doubt, by the cost of petrol in Europe) has succeeded in nearly blowing his house to smithereens. Defeated by this failure and hopelessly in debt, Leo decides to hire a hit man to do him in for his insurance policy. Just as the contract has been signed, Leo's Aunt comes through with a wad of money that is all his -- if he will at last marry. The dilemma of course, is that marriage is a lot easier to arrange than stopping the hit man -- whom Leo has never seen. This, of course, leads to many a case of mistaken identity as Leo sets out to undo his imminent demise. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dieter Hallervorden, Rainer Brandt, (more)
A retired football great heads back to the gridiron to coach a fledgling team and prove he still has that magic touch in this classic Bud Spencer sports comedy. "The Bulldozer" (Spencer) was a football giant with an ego the size of Texas. Refusing to believe that he could ever be defeated out on the gridiron, "The Bulldozer" eventually turned his back on the sport lest he risk being proven wrong. While the former star did prove successful at ducking out of the limelight and beginning a career as an anonymous fisherman, things took a turn for the worst when his boat was destroyed by a submarine. Subsequently unemployed, "The Bulldozer" reluctantly accepted a position coaching a minor-league team. Regardless of his "has been" status, however, "The Bulldozer" still knows that he's the best football player there is, and he's prepared to prove it to the entire world. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- 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, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michael Caine, Paul Hubschmid, (more)
- 1962
In this murder mystery, a man is killed during the carnival before Ash Wednesday right in front of a cathedral. Now a detective must solve the case. Initially, there are four suspects, the carnival prince, the dead man's father, and two women. A second murder occurs on Ash Wednesday. This leads the gumshoe to the real murderer. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1960
Die Junge Suenderim is a teen-centered drama about Eva Reck (Karin Baal), a nineteen-year-old woman born into a kind of respectable poverty, with a working-class father as the head of the family. Because she is beautiful, Eva tends to attract all manner of men, most of whom do not have innocent, romantic love on their minds. When she does fall in love with a student, she gives him up because one of her best friends is also in love with him. Eva continues on with her pure-hearted existence as yet another possible husband comes into view, and this time her chances of marriage and happiness look good. As might be deduced from the plot alone, there is not much depth of character in this film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Karin Baal, Vera Tschechowa, (more)
- 1960
In this drama, a compassionate liberal judge's belief that young delinquents should be reformed rather than placed in prison is sorely tested by young woman convicted of blackmail. First he sends her to prison for eight months to get her away from her wicked boyfriend. When she threatens suicide, the judge must let her go, but before he does, he convinces his reluctant landlady to give her a job waiting tales at his boarding house. She does okay until the boyfriend reappears and cons her into stealing from another resident. The judge covers for the girl and she begins to fall in love with him. Seeing this, the bad boyfriend attempts to blackmail the judge into revealing that he has been making love to the girl. Instead the judge journeys to the boy's hangout and lectures his gang about reform. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Karin Baal
- 1960
If you're into stories about disgruntled postal employees, you'll probably get an extra kick out of the gory German melodrama The Avenger. The "hero" is a criminal who uses the European mail services to (literally) dispatch his victims. First he slices off the heads of his enemies. Then he neatly packages up those heads and sends them through the mail. We'd like to say that he's foiled by insufficient postage, but we'd be fibbing. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
This German-Yugoslav coproduction first surfaced in 1960 under the title Ein Toter Hing Im Netz. Egyptian leading man Alex D'Arcy plays a talent agent who escorts seven gorgeous chorus girls to a club date in Singapore. En route, their plane crash-lands in the ocean. D'Arcy and the girls make their way to a seemingly idyllic island, where they come across a huge spider's web-and the dessicated body of a scientist. The giant spider sinks its teeth in D'Arcy, turning the poor fellow into a werewolf! Then the fun begins, depending upon your idea of fun. Released in America to general distinterest in 1962, It's Hot in Paradise fared no better a few years later, when it was recut and retitled Horrors of Spider Island. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alex D'Arcy
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