Arthur Brauner Movies
- 2006
Stalingrad director Joseph Vilsmaier teams with his wife, director and actress Dana Vávrová, for this harrowing look at the journey of three Berlin Jews to the dreaded Auschwitz Concentration Camp at the height of World War II. In 1942, Joseph Goebbles' herded scores of Berlin Jews into the Grunewald Railway Station in Berlin under the pretext of protecting them from air raids. Entire families were crammed into overcrowded freight trucks without food or drink and forced to endure a journey of several days as unsympathetic guards loomed ominously nearby with guns at the ready. It was during this time that many of those unfortunate souls surely began to realize that this voyage was only the beginning of their woes: Passengers such as famous pugilist Henry Neumann, singer Jakob Noschik, and frightened teenager Ruth Zilbermann. Now, as they roll ever closer to their grim destiny at Auschwitz, the only question that remains is who will survive this dreadful ordeal? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gedeon Burkhard, Lale Yavas, (more)
- 2003
On the eve of the Nazi invasion of Kiev in 1941, two families -- one Jewish and the other Ukrainian -- ponder what the future may hold for them in director Jeff Kanew's 2003 war drama Babij Jar. Genady Lerner (Michael Degen), a Jew and the patriarch of a relatively large extended family, watches with profoundly mixed emotions as the Russian army retreats from the Ukrainian city under intense bombardment from the advancing Nazi army. Skeptical of the rumors abounding regarding the Nazis' extermination of the Jewish race, Genady opts to remain at the family home. Meanwhile, Genady's longtime neighbor Lena Onofrienko (Katrin Sass) decides that assisting the invading army may be in her best interests, in spite of her friendship with the Lerners. Soon, both families are caught up in what became one of the largest Nazi atrocities of World War II, in which 35,000 Ukrainian Jews were slaughtered and incinerated over a period of two days in the nearby ravine called Babij Jar. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Degen, Barbara de Rossi, (more)
- 1992
It is 1943, in Warsaw, 5703 in the Jewish calendar, and the final destruction of the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto is imminent. Two young survivors are designated to escape and tell the story of those left behind. They escape, bearing photos and documents, via the sewers into the rest of Warsaw and make their way to what should have been a "safe" apartment, only to find a non-Jew in residence. Fortunately, she is inclined to be helpful, especially to the frightened young man. The young woman escapee is not as ready to trust this unexpectedly helpful woman, and the three of them play a complicated game of trust and betrayal while the last of Warsaw's Jews are dying. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lambert Wilson, Julie Delpy, (more)
This drama was based on the true story of a young German Jew who survived the Holocaust by falling in with the Nazis. Solomon Perel (Marco Hofschneider) is the son of a Jewish shoe salesman coming of age in Germany during the rise of Adolf Hitler. In 1938, a group of Nazis attack Solomon's family home; his sister is killed, and 13-year-old Solomon flees to Poland. Solomon winds up in an orphanage operated by Stalinist forces; when German forces storm Poland, Solomon's fluent German allows him to join the Nazis as a translator, posing as Josef Peters, an ethnic German. In time, "Peters" is made a member of the elite Hitler Youth, but since Solomon is circumcised, he can be easily revealed as a Jew, and he lives in constant fear that his secret will be discovered. Solomon's close calls include an attempted seduction by Robert Kellerman (André Wilms), a homosexual officer, and his relationship with Leni (Julie Delpy), a beautiful but violently anti-Semitic woman who wants to bear his child for the glory of the master race. Europa, Europa (shown in Europe as Hitlerjunge Salomon) also features the real Solomon Perel, who appears briefly as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marco Hofschneider, Julie Delpy, (more)
- 1989
- PG13
The US/German co-production The Rose Garden is based on an actual court case. Cast against type, Maximillian Schell plays a shabby old man who, without warning, attacks well-to-do Kurt Hubner at the Frankfurt airport. Hubner presses charges, and it looks like an open-and-shut case. But public-defender Liv Ullmann, who has witnessed the incident, is urged by her daughter to defend the poverty-stricken Schell in court. During her investigation, Ullman learns that Schell is a concentration-camp survivor who lost his sister to a hideous Nazi medical experiment, and that Hubner was commandant at the camp where this and other atrocities occurred. Hubner has been able to legally maneuver his way out of Germany, and was en route to parts unknown when Schell recognized him and attacked him. Even though she is armed with this information, Ullmann cannot be certain that justice will be served to the correct man. The Rose Garden is a provocative, compelling piece, deliberately and methodically raising more questions than can possibly be answered within its 112 minute running time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liv Ullmann, Maximilian Schell, (more)
- 1988
- R
Based on a true story, Istvan Szabo's Hanussen centers on an Austrian soldier (Klaus Maria Brandauer) who becomes clairvoyant after he is shot in the head during World War I. He is able to read minds and predict the future. Before long, he has foreseen Hitler and the Nazis' rise to power, and he soon finds himself in danger. Hanussen is the third of Szabo and Brandauer's collaborations, following Mephisto and Colonel Redl. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Erland Josephson, Ildikó Bánsági, (more)
This West German film was first released in 1985 under the title Bittere Ernte. Armin-Mueller Stahl plays a Polish farmer living under the wartime Nazi occupation. Stahl isn't too offended at the prospect of answering to the Germans; in fact, he has profited by confiscating the property of his neighbor, a wealthy Jew. His conscience doesn't disturb him until a starving Jewish woman (Elisabeth Trissenaar) stumbles onto his property. At first Stahl shelters her, but his baser instincts surface; she is in no position to refuse when he ultimately rapes her. She even comes to fall in love with Stahl--and kills herself when another woman moves in with him. Stahl survives the war with health and wealth intact, only mildly disturbed by the misery he has caused. This Oscar-nominated film was to have been lensed in director Agnieszka Holland's native Poland; upon the imposition of martial law, production was switched to Sweden. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Armin Mueller-Stahl, Elisabeth Trissenaar, (more)
- 1985
A rather tame drama considering its emotional topic -- AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome -- this drama is one of the first films to be dedicated to the deadly illness since its discovery in 1981. The film was released in Germany just a month after the Emmy-winning An Early Frost aired on American television -- the first such feature there to handle AIDS and its physical devastation. In this story, Frank (Fritz Cat) drives a cab in Berlin and is suffering from a series of fevers -- quite tellingly, both he and his brother are drug users. At the moment, Frank is trying to help his sibling get out of debt to his suppliers, while on the flip side of the coin he is romancing a good-looking woman he picked up as a fare one day. Meanwhile, the fevers continue. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Geraldine Danon, Piero vonArmin, (more)
- 1983
Based on a non-fiction bestseller of the same name by Rolf Hochhuth, Eine Liebe In Deutschland is about a tragic and forbidden love affair between Stanislaw, a Polish POW (Piotr Lysak) and Paulina (Hanna Schygulla) a fruit-and-vegetable vendor in a small town in Germany along the border with Switzerland. Their affair would have gone undetected except for the busybody women of the village, and when Stanislaw is picked up by a German stormtrooper (Armin Müller-Stahl) and brought in for a mock trial, he is given a chance to prove his racial purity and so perhaps escape execution. As for Paulina, she is ostracized by the villagers and imprisoned for consorting with someone who was not of the same high Aryan caste as herself. Depressing, yet politically relevant to Poland of the early 1980s, this film by acclaimed director Andrzej Wajda) is an effective and emotional statement on the nature of oppression. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hanna Schygulla, Marie-Christine Barrault, (more)
- 1980
- R
In a true story beginning in the year before the outbreak of WW II in France, Charlotte (Birgit Doll), a young woman sent to the safety of her grandfathers in the south of France by her Jewish family in Germany, starts to paint pictures that recall some of the terrors she has already known in Germany before leaving. The movie slips back and forth between the memories her paintings conjure up, and her life in France. At first, back in Germany, Charlotte was convinced that her own optimistic, romantic outlook would save her from all harm. But then that self-deception fades a little as her father, a doctor, is picked up by the Gestapo. Even though her father's release is finally secured by Charlotte's step-mother (an opera singer), the situation steadily deteriorates until her parents send her away in the hope that she will be better off in France. Once there, the harsh reality intrudes so much on her life that not even her paintings can afford her any solace. Her despair becomes stronger as the Nazi atrocities begin to multiply, affording her little real hope of survival. An epilogue to the movie tells the audience the fate of the real Charlotte, since the movie ends before that time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Birgit Doll, Derek Jacobi, (more)
- 1977
Originally released in 1977 as Passion Flower Hotel, the German Boarding School offers viewers Nastassja Kinski in one of her earliest starring roles. She plays a student in a 1950s Swiss boarding school. Along with the rest of her classmates, the girl has a burning desire to touch base with the handsome scholars at a neighboring boys' school. In order to attract the guys' attention, she devises a series of hoaxes and subterfuges to convince them that she and her friends are high-priced hookers! Interestingly enough, Kinski plays an American girl; evidently no European would ever come up with so base a scheme. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nastassja Kinski, Carolin Ohrner, (more)
- 1973
During World War II, unusual opportunities to escape the fate of most Jews sometimes presented themselves. In this film, a Jewish doctor who has founded an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto gets such an opportunity, but elects to remain with his charges even at the cost of his life. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Director Ken Annakin and an international cast including Charlton Heston and George Eastman try to breath life into Jack London's often-filmed wilderness adventure. The story follows the adventures of John Thornton (Heston) and Pete (Raimund Harmstorf) as they brawl their way through the Alaskan wilderness mushing around in dog sleds and hunting for gold. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlton Heston, Raimund Harmstorf, (more)
- 1970
- R
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Vittorio De Sica directs the lyrical war drama Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis), based on a book by Giorgio Bassani. In Ferrara, Italy, at the beginning of WWII, anti-Semitism is spreading. Mussolini has passed several laws that forbid Jews from going to public schools, joining the army, or marrying non-Jews. While many middle-class Jewish families flee the country, the Finzi-Continis believe it's safe inside their sprawling estate. As a wealthy, aristocratic Jewish family, they think their luxurious garden walls will protect them from fascism. Micol Finzi Contini (Dominique Sanda) and her brother (Helmut Berger) invite their Jewish friends to join them in the estate for parties, tennis, and games while the war ravages on. Middle-class Jew Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio) attends the parties with his friend Malnate (Fabio Testi). Giorgio and Micol are childhood sweethearts, but she begins to reject him in favor of Malnate. She also refuses to accept that there's a war going on. Eventually they can pretend no longer, and the war closes in on them. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1971. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dominique Sanda, Lino Capolicchio, (more)
Keir Dullea dives into a bevy of babes with an open wine bottle as the notorious Marquis de Sade in this low-budget debauch from American International Pictures -- purveyors of fine entertainment morsels for the connoisseur. The film takes place as an extended flashback after de Sade has escaped from a madhouse and taken refuge in the dilapidated mansion where he was reared. In his flashback, de Sade recalls how the Abbe de Sade (John Huston) used to have a maid whip him until he began to like it. Of course, after that, the next step down the primrose path was flagellation and orgies. Finally sent to a French jail for lewd behavior, de Sade begins to write anti-government creeds to while away the hours. After his release, he is compelled to marry the repulsive Renee de Montreuil (Anna Massey). De Sade goes along with the marriage in order to get closer to her sister Anne (Senta Berger). In spite of that, de Sade continues to seek out various forms of softcore sex. But then the Black Plague hits. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keir Dullea, Senta Berger, (more)
- 1968
This 99-minute film constitutes the first half of Robert Siodmak's mammoth two-part epic Der Kampf um Rom (Fight for Rome). The film depicts the Goths' sacking of Rome in 526 AD. No expense was spared in bringing this story to the screen: for example, Siodmak utilized six companies of Rumanian cavalry for the battle sequence, and the epic packs in an all-star cast including Laurence Harvey as Celhegus, Orson Welles as Justinian and Sylva Koscina as Theodora. The film carefully lays a groundwork of corruption and infighting, suggesting that the siege of Rome was virtually justified. Screenwriter Ladislas Fodor (a former government agent best known for his espionage yarns) adapted his script from the best-selling novel by Felix Dahn. The second half, Der Kampf um rom 2: Der Verrat (which also clocks in at just over 1.5 hours) was issued in 1969, a year after the first; Four years after that (c. 1973), the two parts of Der Kampf um Rom were edited together, cut down to 94 minutes, and distributed as a single entry in the United States.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laurence Harvey, Orson Welles, (more)
- 1968
This uneven and humorless drama is taken from the writings of Sholom Aleichem. Unfortunately, this movie version falls short of the tragic comedy presented in the original text. Tovie is a poor milkman who must work hard to support his wife and seven daughters. One by one, the young women leave the house when they reach the age when they can marry. The film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival and was partially financed by government funds from Germany and Israel, though it seems a shame that the money wasn't better spent. Perhaps purists were upset at the theatrical success of the musical Fiddler on the Roof and wanted something more solemn and reverential. The stories of the great Yiddish author were adapted by Norman Jewison just three years later into a vastly superior film of the musical, which captured the comedy and pathos of the rural Jewish poor so ably rendered in the stories. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1967
The fine line between drama and real life is crossed with tragic results in this German horror mystery film that is set in modern London and centers on a stage production of Jack the Ripper's life. During the run of the play, a series of murders, eerily similar to Jack's, occur. This doesn't bother the lead actor too much until he discovers that his fake knife has been replaced by a real one during a performance. Horrified, he flees the theater. Pursued by Scotland Yard, he must somehow prove his innocence lest he be sent to the gallows. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hansjörg Felmy, Marianne Koch, (more)
- 1966
When he's given an ancient Chinese medallion, a photographer (Robert Stack) has no idea that it contains a map which leads to a former emperor's treasure horde. Unfortunately, several nefarious elements are aware of the fact. The film was originally titled Hell to Macao. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Stack, Elke Sommer, (more)
In this mystery, a beautiful mystery writer helps a Scotland Yard detective look into the murders of several important business man. She solves the mystery before the cop and informs him that the killer's identity will be revealed in the last chapter of her newest book. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dieter Borsche, Hans Söhnker, (more)
- 1966
In this frilly-costumed comedy, Baron Halbach (Martin Held) and his daughter Dodo (Senta Berger) move freely among the wealthy social elite, stealing jewels. When Dodo falls for the handsome London lawyer Robert (Joachim Fuchsberger), the Baron tries to stop the budding romance. Later, Dodo is caught trying to pull off one last caper before she marries, but Robert successfully wins her case in court. Watch for James Robertson Justice as Robert's father Sir Hammond in this lavish production. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Senta Berger, Martin Held, (more)
- 1965
This crime drama is a remake of Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933). This time, the malignant Mabuse attempts to enact his evil schemes by hypnotizing another to do them in his stead. A series of strange crimes sets a detective on the case. The hapless detective soon finds himself captured by Mabuse's evil pawn who tortures the investigator with electroshock treatments. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1964
This is the final entry in the Dr. Mabuse films a bad doctor wants to blow up Earth with a death ray and a giant concave mirror. He is thwarted by the brave hero. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
In this sci-fi murder mystery, a scientist uses himself as a subject in an experiment with cryogenic suspended animation and ends up accused of murdering his ex-wife. Fortunately, his girl friend is around to prove that he was on ice when the murder occurred. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
