Peter Patzak Movies
- 1997
Based on the sprawling novel by Vicki Baum, this convoluted melodrama follows nine people whose lives converge during the days leading up to the tragic August 14, 1937 "Bloody Sunday" bombing in which a major downtown Shanghai hotel was demolished by the Japanese, an event that launched the Sino-Japanese War. The guests include Helen Russell, an enigmatic Russian noblewoman, her alcoholic British spouse Bobbie and Sir Kingsdale Smith, a royal emissary. Other guests are Hutchinson, a wheelchair-bound travel writer and the gossipy Mme. Tissaud. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Agnieszka Wagner, Annie Girardot, (more)
- 1991
In Sarajevo, in the year 1914, a recently expelled seventeen-year-old Serbian schoolboy named Gavre Princip (Rueben Pillsbury) threw the bomb that killed the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For reasons that are sometimes confusing even to scholars, the whole of Europe was soon embroiled in the conflict we now call World War I. This drama explores the life of the blond, blue-eyed "anarchist" and Serbian nationalist just before the fatal bombing, and it underscores not only the boy's motives for his deed, but the conditions endured by subjects of the empire. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Christopher Chaplin, Robert Munic, (more)
In this complicated police film, a police detective, who still grieves for the child he accidentally shot during a gun fight, finds distraction when a streetwalker approaches him and asks him to help her get out of the dark world in which she is hopelessly mired. Soon the cop finds himself involved with extortion, drugs and a serial killer. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Armin Mueller-Stahl, Morgan Fairchild, (more)
- 1987
- R
Detective Jon Bogdan (Peter Maffay) becomes wheelchair-bound when he is injured in a restaurant bombing perpetrated by the notorious Dr. Proper (Michael York). He rolls into action trying to track down the bomber. When he regains the use of his legs, Jon stays in his chair to give his enemies the illusion he is paralyzed. Elliot Gould has a forgettable role in this equally forgettable film-noir styled crime thriller. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Peter Maffay, Tahnee Welch, (more)
- 1984
The oddly backward attitudes of a remote Alpine village are highlighted in this story about Bohme (Franco Nero) a stranger who arrives in town one day and creates suspicious looks and queries among the villagers when he appears to have some secret or another. Two disparate brothers, one shy and the other not, are curious about the stranger for their own reasons. Eventually, Bohme lets the townspeople know that he is actually investigating the murder of his mother who lived in a nearby village. As the evidence against the killer grows, Bohme's life is in jeopardy, but the villagers do not seem to be greatly affected one way or another with either his quest or its outcome. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Franco Nero
- 1984
Beleaguered by choppy editing and potholes in the script, this story is about the bond that develops between an aging, former railroad worker living in an abandoned theater and Willie, the wayward, alcoholic architect he shelters (Elliot Gould). The flaws in the script and story development, and the architect's exaggerated character traits, work against the concept of a growing friendship between the two men and leave the main thrust of the film in limbo. A subplot has a gang of street thugs chasing Willie all over the city in order to retrieve some photos of a murder he accidentally recorded. At the same time, Willie is trying to reconcile with his son, left in the care of his neglected wife. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Elliott Gould, Heinz Moog, (more)
- 1982
Harry Werner (Frank Gorshin) is a ruthless hired assassin who leaves San Francisco after one killing, to go to Vienna and eliminate a low-level con artist engaged in blackmailing some government officials. Unfortunately, the conman is capable of mayhem himself, and between the two, the hunter and the hunted, a lot of blood will gush before the police begin to stem the red tide. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Franz Buchrieser, Frank Gorshin, (more)
- 1982
Harry Werner (Frank Gorshin) is a ruthless hired assassin who leaves San Francisco after one killing, to go to Vienna and eliminate a low-level con artist engaged in blackmailing some government officials. Unfortunately, the conman is capable of mayhem himself, and between the two, the hunter and the hunted, a lot of blood will gush before the police begin to stem the red tide. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- 1979
The ever-present forces which originally gave rise to Nazism in Germany still have power in the postwar era, as this 1979 film shows. Kassbach is a grocery-store owner who has a belly full of grievances against minorities and feels privileged to take advantage of anyone who is weaker than himself. He cheats his customers, abuses his workers, and has joined a group of people who think the same way he does. They get together to knife a foreign guest-worker, and Kassbach himself shoots a man who could identify him during another "action." The final confrontation, though, comes when he must face down his son, who has espoused leftist causes. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Walter Kohut, Immy Schell, (more)
- 1977
- R
In this crime drama, an ingenious, unseen thief recruits ex-cons to join his gang via short-wave radio in hopes of pulling off a huge caper. Unfortunately, a woman inadvertently stands in his way, and violence ensues as he tries to move her and carry on with his plans. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
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