Dieter Schidor Movies

This is an original underground hodge-podge that mixes the philosophy of Berliner Lothar Lambert's filmmaking with excerpts from his previous film, hacked to ruinous pieces in a processing lab. Ulrike S. stars as a refugee from an asylum who bares it all when accosted by a nosy bourgeois in the street. All she has to do is open her raincoat, the only garment she owns. At the same time, Ulrike S. shows up at Lambert's editing table as he mourns the loss of his last film and comments on his rising career in the film medium. Also offering their sharp comments are producer Albert Heins, and Dagmar Beiersdorf, who challenges Lambert on what his previous film was supposed to mean. Meanwhile, the "other film" within this film continues, centering on a gay man on the prowl and a wheelchair-bound voyeur. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

More of an underground experiment than an above-ground, straightforward drama, this stylized film is about Teutonic decadence landing in and spreading around the cocaine capital of the world, Colombia. Some of the German ex-patriots delineated here have all the warmth of a Siberian winter, while some -- such as a gay-blade babbler surrounded by beautiful people of his own gender -- have all the depth of a fruit tart, and some are just fruity tarts. As these types go on and on about sex, government, justice and the lack of it, audiences might end up as alienated as the characters in the narrative. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In another Berlin underground farce from Lothar Lambert, the popular 1970's and '80s director/writer/actor focuses his sights on Gerhard, a buttoned-down bank clerk (played by Lambert) desperately in need of liberation. The poor man is hounded by his sister and a lustful neighbor and seems trapped in his life until Hans (Hans Marquardt), another bank employee, convinces Gerhard to come along to a big transvestite club to watch him and others perform. Gerhard goes -- and his evening out becomes the hot topic for the staid bank employees the next day. Undaunted, Gerhard decides to go back to the club and join in the performances after some serious practice in front of a mirror -- and he not only comes out of the closet, but runs wildly rampant through the neighborhood, taking down society's taboos as he goes along. Parents who supervise their young children's viewing should take note that much of Lambert's humor derives from very adult situations, and perhaps less-than-adult attitudes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A sailor learns to take, and give, it like a man in this surrealistic adaptation of writer and thief Jean Genet's novel Querelle de Brest by avant-garde German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. In a colorful brothel in the port of Brest, proprietor Nono (Gunther Kaufmann) is known for wagering with his customers. Win a throw of the dice, and they get to make love with his wife, Lysiane (Jeanne Moreau); lose, and they must take it from behind by Nono himself. One day, Lysiane reads the tarot for her lover, Robert (Hanno Poschl), and learns in the cards of his intense passion for his brother, Querelle (Brad Davis). Querelle himself soon arrives, and the brothers enact a bizarre greeting halfway between a hug and a wrestling match. Querelle, it seems, is looking for partners in a drug deal; Robert points him in the right direction. An argument about the merits of sex between men soon leads Querelle to murder his fellow smuggler, Vic (Dieter Schidor). Back at the whorehouse, Querelle loses on purpose to Nono and finds he has a taste for passive gay sex. Meanwhile, fellow sailor Gil, who looks exactly like Querelle's brother (and is played by the same actor), murders one of his compatriots after the brute publicly impugns his manhood. Wanted by the police for both his own crime and Querelle's, Gil goes on the lam. Querelle soon crashes his hideout, and an intense bond develops between the two murderers -- a friendship that will lead Querelle to the greatest love, and the greatest treachery, of his life. Director Fassbinder was in the process of editing Querelle when he died of a drug overdose in June 1982. Gunther Kaufmann, who plays Nono, was Fassbinder's ex-lover; the film is dedicated to another former lover, El Hedi Ben Salem, the news of whose suicide had just reached the director. Critically derided even by many of Fassbinder's admirers, Querelle earned a Golden Raspberry award for Worst "Original" Song for "Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves," an Oscar Wilde poem set to music by Peer Raben and sung repeatedly by Jeanne Moreau. Moreau had previously starred in Mademoiselle, a Tony Richardson effort co-scripted by Genet. Look for Frank Ripploh, another pioneering German director, in a cameo. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder died of a drug overdose on June 10, 1982, before his last film, Querelle was edited. This documentary is both about the filming of Querelle -- a sailor of that name whose love life left nothing to be desired -- and about director Fassbinder's working techniques and philosophy. While actors and workers comment on the filming of Querelle, a 14-minute interview with Fassbinder taped eight hours before he died was supposed to convey the first element, his own beliefs and working methods. Fassbinder's mother had the interview pulled by court order, leaving the Wizard of Babylon without the benefit of the wizard's own chemistry. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

With George C. Scott and Marlon Brando heading the cast, The Formula should have been far better than it is. Adapted by Steve Shagan from his own best-selling novel, the film is predicated on the concept that a formula for synthetic fuel had been developed by the Nazis during WW II. In the intervening 35 years since the war's end, the formula has disappeared and several people connected with it have died under mysterious circumstances. Also during this period, oil magnate Adam Steiffel (Marlon Brando) had commiserated with one of the decedents. Police officer Barney Caine (George C. Scott), a friend of the dead man, hopes to solve the mystery, and in so doing gets mixed up in a wide-ranging conspiracy to manipulate worldwide fuel prices. Reportedly, The Formula underwent a great deal of editing-room surgery before its release. If so, the editors certainly erred in retaining so many of the film's interminable "steadicam" sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Albrech Berblinger (Tilo Prückner) is an inventive young man who is working as an apprentice tailor in 18th-century Ulm. He discovers how to make a sailplane which will enable him to fly. As his discovery coincides with France's bloody revolution, this causes him to become a pawn in the political machinations of the rulers of his portion of Germany. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Also released as Sergeant Steiner, Breakthrough is a German war flick helmed by western specialist Andrew McLaglen. Richard Burton stars as Sgt. Steiner, a German who doesn't subscribe to the Nazi party line. When the plot to kill Hitler is hatched, Steiner is persuaded to join the conspiracy by General Hoffman (Curt Jurgens). Robert Mitchum and Rod Steiger costar as American officers peripherally involved in the storyline. Intended as a sequel to the successful Cross of Iron, Breakthrough failed to match the box-office performance of the earlier film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This fast-paced black comedy by wunderkind director Rainer Werner Fassbinder follows the frantic efforts of a starving and confused writer, Walter Kranz (Kurt Raab) to beg, borrow or steal enough money to survive on, and at the same time make some sense of his confusing life. Unable to write enough to keep his publisher's royalty advances coming, he seeks out a woman he imagines is a prostitute and interviews her for material. He is also inspired to utter some poetry, which his brassy, outspoken wife identifies as coming from the famous homosexuality-advocating mystical German poet, Stefan George. This inspires Walter to take a closer look at the "gay scene," and he quickly becomes a sort of celebrity there. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The inaugural film effort of French director Jean-Jacques Annaud, Black and White in Color is set during World War I. Upon the outbreak of hostilities, a French trading post in West Central Africa finds itself at odds with a formerly peaceful German post, for no other reason than their parent countries are at war. The newly xenophobic French traders attack the Germans, only to fail in their efforts. Socialist Jacques Spiesser is put in charge of the debilitated French contingent, utterly discarding his former high ideals in the process. Filmed on location on the Ivory Coast, the satirical Black and White in Color (originally La Victoire en Chantant) won the American Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 1976. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide