Lee Breuer Movies
This West German film is set in the California Desert. A husband-and-wife pair of Bavarian tourists become stranded when their car breaks down; after a quarrel, the wife, Marianne Sagebrecht, gathers her luggage and stalks off. She stops at the Bagdad Cafe, a fleapit truckstop run by outspoken C.C.H. Pounder, who is also having husband problems. The Cafe has become a magnet for some of truly odd character: temperamental Hispanic cook George Aguilar, tattoo artist Christine Kaufmann, and onetime Hollywood set designer Jack Palance. Despite obvious personality differences, Sagebrecht and Pounder become friends. Bagdad Cafe was later adapted into a short-lived American sitcom starring Jean Stapleton and Whoopi Goldberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marianne Sägebrecht, CCH Pounder, (more)
- 1984
Sheila McLaughlin produced, directed, wrote and starred in this low-budget but heartfelt filmed biography of the tragic stage and screen actress Frances Farmer. Always a maverick, Farmer could never fit in with the Hollywood public-relations mill, nor was she totally at ease with the posing intellectuals of the Group Theatre. Bombarded by unfair pressure from all sides, Farmer eventually loses control over herself and has to be committed to an institution--and then suffers a far worse fate when she is put in the protective custody of her embittered mother. This story was related on a more elaborate scale in the American TV movie Will There Ever Be a Morning? (with Susan Blakely) and the theatrical film Frances (with Jessica Lange). McLaughlin's ambitious version was originally produced for British television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sheila McLaughlin, Victoria Boothby, (more)
- 1976
In this film, outspokenly homosexual filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim has documented his encounters with friends in the New York "underground" arts movement, the better-known of whom are William Burroughs (who says nothing for the camera), Andy Warhol (seen in the distance) and Fernando Arrabal (who is interviewed in Spanish). The emigrants named in the title are notable Germans who left the country before World War II, such as Greta Keller and Grete Mosheim. Reviewers at the time of the film's release considered it to have been a sort of paid vacation for the filmmaker rather than a serious effort. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William S. Burroughs
