Walter Rilla

Sumuru, the beautiful leader of the all-female kingdom of Femina, plans to use her women to take over the world.

Rupp (Jannings) is a former butcher, made rich in the meat packing industry as a result of the reversal of fortunes brought on by WWI. He is crude, uncouth and uneducated. His son, Fred, is the apple of his father's eye and is an auto enthusiast. The widowed Rupp falls in love with a former aristocrat, Helen, now down on her luck and pawning her last heirloom. He proposes marriage and she accepts in order to save her ailing mother who needs a monetary influx to avoid death. Her former boyfriend, Platen, warns Helen against Rupp's intentions - he and Rupp are enemies, Rupp having caused his being fired for protecting a chorus girl against Rupp's unwanted advances. Meanwhile, Graf, a shyster, arranges purchase of a near bankrupt auto manufacturing firm, Phoenix, to Rupp's great advantage with practically no monetary recognition to Graf, who swears revenge. Rupp comes upon his son begging Helen not to marry his father but to return to Platen.

A scruffy garbage boy becomes the pupil of famed gunfighter Talby, and the stage for confrontation is set when the gunman overruns the boy's town through violence and corruption.

Vienna, 1956. After Soviet tanks crush the Hungarian uprising, soldier-of-fortune Michael Reynolds is hired to help a threatened Hungarian scientist escape from Budapest.

The Grimm brothers Wilhelm and Jacob, known for their literary works in the nineteenth century, have their lives dramatized. Wilhelm fights to write something entertaining amongst the sea of dry, non-fiction books they write and he sets about collecting oral-tradition fairy tales to put into print. Their life story is countered with reenactments of three of their stories including "The Dancing Princess," "The Cobbler and the Elves" and "The Singing Bone."

Grisly strangulations in London alert Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard to the possibility that fiendish Fu Manchu may not after all be dead, even though Smith witnessed his execution. A killer spray made from Tibetan berries seems to be involved and clues keep leading back to the Thames.

A young sailor finds himself trapped in the labyrinthine mansion of his occultist uncle, along with a number of eccentric and mysterious relatives who all seem to be harboring a dark secret.

18th century English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney leads a double life. He appears to be merely the effete aristocrat, but in reality is part of an underground effort to free French nobles from Robespierre's Reign of Terror.

A ring of counterfeiters is flooding the country with phony money, and suspicion falls upon a wealthy playboy who may--or may not--have amnesia.

The romantic story of Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt, whose scandalous love affair forced him to abandon his adoring audiences.

Travelling to Venice to locate an ex-partisan on behalf of a French insurance company, a British private detective gets mixed-up in a political assassination conspiracy.

Thomas Mann's witty and intimate story of a irresistible scoundrel.

The spirit of the evil Dr. Mabuse takes over the body of a famous professor. The professor/Dr. Mabuse then begins a new crime wave that terrorizes the city.

A mineral is discovered which can turn metal to gold or humans into zombies. When the mineral is stolen, secret agents are sent in to get the mineral back!

The evil Dr. Mabuse develops a death ray with which he threatens the world.

Dr. Mabuse has been locked away for years in an insane asylum. Suddenly crimes start occurring and no one knows the culprit. A detective goes to visit the Doctor to find some sort of clues to the robberies.

British Captain Terence Stevenson accepts an assignment even more dangerous than his everyday job of defusing undetonated bombs. Fluent in Romanian and German and having studied chemical engineering, he's parachuted into Romania to assume the identity of Captain Jan Tartu, a member of the fascist Iron Guard. Tartu makes his way to Czechoslovakia to steal the formula of a new Nazi poison gas and sabotage the factory of its manufacturing.

No description available.

A serial-killer is murdering the ladies of a night club. Detective Gray is seeking for the killer but can only find a lot of gangsters. And the killer is about to act again...

While working in England, an American surgeon Dr. John Marlowe is invited to Vosnia (a fictitious East-European country) to receive an award and demonstrate his life-saving surgery. Unwittingly caught in the middle of a dangerous and corrupt series of political events, Marlowe then becomes the object of a shoot-to-kill, vicious pursuit. Fleeing, he seeks help from an English-speaking actress, Lisa Robinson, and the two attempt to escape across the treacherous mountains of Vosnia.

In 1908, Sultan Abdul Hamid rules the Turkish Empire, but he is faced with the threat of revolt by the Young Turk party. He allows Hilmi Pasha, the leader of the Young Turks, to return from exile and form the country's first constitutional government. With tensions still growing, chief of police Kadar Pasha assassinates Hassan Bey, the leader of the Old Turk party, and makes it look as if a Young Turk committed the crime, in order to give Abdul an excuse for arresting the Young Turk leaders. Meanwhile, Abdul becomes infatuated with a visiting Austrian singer. When she rejects his advances, she endangers both herself and her fiancé, a Turkish officer who also knows who really shot Hassan Bey.

A British colonial policeman in Africa investigates a murder in a hospital up river.

Based on an actual murder case in Frankfurt after the war, the film tells the story of the murder of Rosemarie, a prostitute, and how she ended up strangled in her apartment.

Squire Pierre St. Laurent returns from wars in India to 17th-century provincial France to find his estate confiscated by governor Narbonne, for back taxes, and resold to Katrina, a Dutch Countess. Katrina offers to return Pierre's property if he will help her get possession of the 'Star of India,' a fabulous sapphire, held at the moment by Narbonne.

Martin Hollmann, a young gardener meets his significantly older wife's daughter from her first marriage. Liesbeth Kröger is from his generation and they both get along well straight away. Shortly after his wife's death, Martin brings Liesbeth into his house as a housekeeper, and they both fall in love. The couple live together and soon decide to get married when Liesbeth becomes pregnant by Martin. But now the tragedy begins, because when registering at the registry office, Martin and Liesbeth, in the form of a strict bailiff, are officially declared that they have committed incest in accordance with Section 173 of the Criminal Code.

An American reporter smells a story when he is stranded in an Iron Curtain country where the local dictator is using gamma rays to transform children into mutated henchmen.

In this musical, a tempermental opera singer falls in love with a hearing-impaired young woman.

Nick, an American gambler, arrives in San Paolo and falls in love with Colleen, an American tourist, after she loses all of her money at the casino. Nick flees with Colleen after they are framed for murder and he tries to track down the real killer.

John Forrest is anticipating a quiet retirement spent penning detective fiction when he learns that a priceless collection of jewels belonging to a foreign potentate, Prince Homouska, has just vanished from the safekeeping of the Stamford Assurance Company. Aided by his butler, his Cockney assistant and his (initially) unwilling wife, Forrest sets out on the trail of the thieves.

An archaeologist stumbles into the territory of an evil crime syndicate and struggles to set things right.

Continuing the story of 'Victoria the Great'.

An assortment of international criminals plans to steal priceless Egyptian artifacts from a Cairo museum. MGM remake of Asphalt Jungle set in Egypt.

A gang of clever thieves kill a wealthy woman in hopes of stealing her gems. But the thieves aren't clever enough to ascertain the location of those gems, so they consult a phony spiritualist. Then they decide to dispose of the mystic by framing her for the murder.

No description available.

During the eighteenth century the Empress of Russia sends her lover to kidnap her rival for the throne.

No description available.

Based on the play by Lion Feuchtwanger.

A young woman leaves behind her job, home and family to try to make it in the movie business. Features cameos from about three dozen German film stars of the era.

No description available.

A newspaper reporter finds himself drawn into the aftermath of a racetrack robbery.

In a small town, the dancer Inge Maria Torselli is very popular with the theater audience. Her father is a ballet master and trained her. Lieutenant Count von Arenheim falls in love with her. But his childhood friend Harald von Bodenstein is also at her feet. The lieutenant asks the father for his daughter's hand in marriage and in order to be able to get married, he applies for his release from the military. His superiors and his mother have certain prejudices against the dancer for whom the lieutenant wants to sacrifice his career. Meanwhile, his old friend Harald tries to forget his grief that Inge didn't choose him. The lieutenant's mother sets the condition that the dancer gives up the stage forever. (Bundesarchiv)

The film biography of Queen Victoria focusing initially on the early years of her reign with her marriage to Prince Albert and her subsequent rule after Albert's death in 1861.

Scampolo is a young, poor girl who lives on the island of Ischia. She falls in love with a young architect who hopes to win a design competition. Scampolo intecedes on his behalf with the minister and helps him to make his dream come true.

Candlelight in Algeria is a 1944 British war film directed by George King and starring James Mason, Carla Lehmann and Raymond Lovell. This drama follows the exploits of Eisenhower's top aide, Mark Clark, and other important Allies as they journey to an important meeting held on Algeria's coast. The precise location of this vital secret gathering is upon a piece of film which must not fall into enemy hands

Girl dressed up as a boy falls in love with a painter.

A young intellectual falls in love with a circus performer and decides to cultivate her into a lady and marry her. Eventually however she decides to return to her tightrope walker lover.

A French violinist saves his beloved princess from the Russian revolution..

An Italian engineer who had made a strategically important invention to ward off enemy aircraft is killed in a robbery. As the plans have presumably fallen into the hands of spies, secret service captain Bergall is given the task of recovering the papers. Bergall initially adopts a false name and appears as Mr. Gran, whom nobody knows. Under this name, he rents a room in the Hotel Danieli in Venice and makes the acquaintance of the shipowner's daughter Viola Dolleen. With her help, he is able to eliminate Captain Gordon, who is also interested in the plans. When Gran learns that the plans are now in the possession of the art dealer Tschernikoff, who wants to sell them to Gordon, he immediately travels to Rome, visits the art dealer Titian and pretends to be Gordon. In the art dealer's remote villa, events come thick and fast...

Andy and Sebastian want to make a lot of money in a quick and easy way. Inspired by the movies, they become private investigators. Their first case happens to be about a beautiful girl called Annabella. But being a private investigator is a more demanding job then Andy and Sebastian had initially thought. Their female acquaintances Annabella, Christa, and Micky also have their share in Andy′s and Sebastian′s problems. The two wannabe detectives become more and more entangled in things that prove to be too much for them.

The likeable and carefree Grand Duke of Abacco is in dire straits. There is no money left to service the State's debt; the main creditor is looking forward to expropriating the entire Duchy. The marriage with Olga, Grand Duchess of Russia, would solve everything, but a crucial letter of hers about the engagement has been stolen. Besides, a bunch of revolutionaries and a dubious businessman have other plans regarding the Grand Duke. With the intrusion of adventurer Philipp Collins into the Grand Duke's affairs, a series of frantic chases, plots and counter-plots begins.

A musical-comedy directed by Carl Boese

An elaborate bank robbery takes place and the gangsters succeed although the FBI had been warned. Jerry Cotton, who is considered accountable for this major failure, loses his badge over this. Being the man he is, Cotton doesn't let the evil-doers forget that he has unfinished business with them.

Mommsen Gymnasium director Taft secretly places his nephew as a spy with the difficult class of Pepe Nietnagel. During the celebration for the 100th anniversary, a simulated fire forces the school to shut down for a week. The director's attempt to get a tough teacher assigned by the department of education results in the exact opposite because of Nietnagel's intervention.

Story of a Dutchman's flight across post-war Germany trying to locate the man who alone can clear him of a false murder charge. (BFI Website)

No description available.

The first victim is the butler of South African millionaire Wexler, who hires hard-hitting private eye Steve Martin for protection. Once at Wexler’s palatial Cape Town estate, Martin meets the patriarch’s family, close associates – and possible suspects. When it’s discovered that the key to the killing may lie in an old war photograph, Martin sets out on a mission to unravel the identities of the men in the picture before they become target two through VICTIM 5.

A young man living in Africa is send to Hamburg by his parents to learn about business. There, he falls in love with the mistress of a friend.

The story of a famous chamber singer, who finds in life every humiliation and intrigue he sings about on stage.

The film starts with a woman on the run from her millionaire husband giving birth to a daughter in the home of a washerwoman. The woman dies in childbirth, but the baby survives. The washerwoman leaves the baby in a horsedrawn Parisian taxicab (No. 13). The paperwork of the birth is lost in a huge tome. Sixteen years pass. The tome is bought by a poor student. One day his bookshelf collapses, and the tome opens at the page where the paperwork has been hidden. The student realises that the paperwork relates to a millionaire who has spent the last sixteen years looking for his pregnant wife. The student traces the washerwoman, and he tricks her into confessing what she has done with the baby. Meanwhile, the baby has been adopted by the cab driver and his wife, and has grown into Lili Damita.

Dr. Stefan Donat, a doctor from Frankfurt, unexpectedly becomes the sole heir to his wife Agnes' estate after she dies of a terminal illness, even though they had been divorced for years. The change in the will in Stefan's favor was made on the day Agnes died in her apartment between 4 and 6 pm. The original heiress, Mingo Fabian, contested the will. She is 23 years old, Agnes' cousin and was also friends with Stefan Donat. She finds this step very difficult, but her lawyer, Dr. Bernburger, persuades her to take it, as he wants to marry her. The body is exhumed and shortly afterwards Dr. Donat is arrested on suspicion of murder...

a movie by Heinz Paul

A financier plots to become the richest man in the world by marrying off his daughter to the son of an Arab sheik.

Captain Justin Mollenard works for a company that sells armaments to the Far East. After an eventful stay in Shanghai, where he and his cargo are the victim of a malicious attack, he returns to his hometown of Dunkirk. Mollenard receives a frosty welcome from his wife Mathilde, who resents the way in which he has neglected his family for so many years. Mollenard’s only wish is to get back to sea as soon as he can, but a sudden heart-attack leaves him paralysed and entirely in his wife’s power...

Relations between middle-aged businessman Arthur Dahlberg and his young wife Anja are not at their best. So it occurred to them to leave their Hamburg home and go on vacation to the Côte d'Azur to revitalize their relationship. But Arthur Dahlberg, even on vacation, is obsessed with running his business. Meanwhile, Anya meets the young writer Roy Benter.

Yankee charter pilot Morris inadvertently finds himself in the midst of thieves who have purloined a costly antique jade figure from an exhibit. He tracks the thieves to Battersea, where he rescues the fair Germaine from their unsavory clutches, and the Buddha boosters gain only jaded justice.

Lydia is a spoiled young woman who thinks she can get anything for money. One day she causes an accident in which a motorcyclist is killed. At the trial she meets prosecutor Dan O'Bannon. She is sentenced to prison for manslaughter.

Did an 18-year-old immigrant from the slums murder his father in cold blood? The twelve jurors must find a unanimous verdict.

A musical cabaret singer meets a British agent and goes with him to Nazi occupied France to save an atomic scientist.

An elderly Jewish man from Manchester, travels to Nazi Germany to seek the mother of a young German refugee that has attempted suicide. In Germany, Mr. Emmanuel’s efforts to seek out Hertha Rosenhein are greeted by a wall of silence from the scared Jewish community and anti-Semitic hatred from many Germans.

After the First World War, history professor Abel Cornelius wants to distance himself from his previously published political views. This could go well, were it not for the student Max Hergesell, who provokes the professor to such an extent that he has to defend and justify himself, especially as he really has no taste for the current social changes. When the professor's older children arrange a party, Max Hergesell also turns up, much to Cornelius' surprise. To make matters worse, the student gains the sympathy of Cornelius' beloved baby Lorchen, who only wants to be put to bed by Max...

An unknown guest checks into an obscure hotel. He is a burly but well-dressed gentleman carrying an umbrella and a tree frog in a glass. This man spends most of his time wandering the hallways and staircases of the inn, ostensibly to hunt for flies to feed his pet. But quite obviously, there is more to it than that: the man also listens at doors and peeks through their keyholes.

When a henpecked beauty salon owner goes out for one final, wild night of revelry with his friends, the stag party spirals completely out of control into a chaotic tavern brawl. He wakes up with a massive hangover and a bump on his head, only to discover that his missing engraved lighter has been left at a crime scene, implicating him in the assault of a police officer. Terrified of both the law and his domineering wife, the innocent business owner goes into hiding in the rough part of town, sparking a classic, fast-paced silent film comedy of errors.

No description available.

No description available.

A troupe of French actors on tour in Normandy become involved in the events of WWII.

A scientist experimenting with suspended animation decides to use himself as a test subject. Before he is frozen, his wife is killed, and he is suspected of her murder. a murder suspect.

The fate of a French aristocrat is revealed in this historical costume drama, who, in 1792, finds herself confronted with the choice of either standing with her peers or becoming a revolutionary.

A melodrama about a painter who is infected with syphilis, refuses treatment, turns to the use instead of narcotics, and withers away.

Bank director Ernst Rose, owner of the Hamburg bank Traven & Co., is asked to go to the airport earlier than expected to pick up his daughter Silvia. When he arrives, he realizes too late that he has walked into a trap. He is overpowered by kidnappers and abducted. The gang around Alexander Ford and his men want to rob three and a half million from the bank vault at the weekend. But it can only be opened with four keys, which are in the hands of four so-called key holders. Under the direction of criminal Ford, all those involved become puppets in a game of life and death.

No description available.

Ivan Petrov has one weakness in his life, and one love: his little black-eyed daughter, Tania. In fact, his entire career is devoted to her future happiness, though Tania remains ignorant as to his vocation. Done with cool deliberation, Petrov's all-consuming fear is that one day his lovely daughter will discover his true profession, and despise him for it...

The son of a British racehorse owner conspires with a bookie to ruin the odds of his father's thoroughbred winning an important event.

A Spanish nobleman raises his only daughter as a boy, similarly to Greta Garbo in Queen Christina (1933). In adulthood, Juana's upbringing causes complications in her love life. Possibly an early example of genderqueer representation.

No description available.

Mrs. Erlynne, a mistress once expelled by London society, returns from America after years with the desire to regain a foothold in these circles.

Film by Waschneck.

An extravagant comedy with Heinz Rühmann.

The already successful tenor Mattei is discovered after he already retired into private life. Der Wiener Staatsoper place a significant part in this musical comedy drama.

After the tragic death from malaria of her beloved husband his rich widow Helga Vanroh travels restlessly around various Mediterranean countries. In the luxurious surroundings of a hotel in Monte Carlo Mrs. Vanroh keeps apart from society, until one evening she decides to visit the casino. There a young man attracts her curiosity and compassion.

The gorgeous 40-year-old Elsie Lindtner lives in a beautiful house, and is married to a respectable university professor. And yet, there’s something that nags her. She’s about to reach “the dangerous age”, when beauty begins to fade and boredom kicks in. She falls in love with a younger man and divorces her husband, but ends up hiding away in a country house where she can age in secret. (Stumfilm.dk)

France 1944: American pilot Philip Sturgess is shot down but found by a resistance group. In the neighborhood Sturgess meets another American and shortly thereafter the British Major Barton, called “Reiher”. He claims to have fled a German prison camp. Shortly before leaving for Spain to escape the Nazis, Sturgess discovers that Barton has written a letter to Germany. This confirms the suspicion that he could be a German spy…

Circus themed films usually provides a thrilling drama. The relatively obscure "Schatten der Manege" provides just what you'd expect. Doing the trapeze act angle, combining it with romance and jealousy for a darker plot, it has a lot of the right the ingredients. Does have moments where it spends too long of circus footage, which ruins some of the pacing, but otherwise a fine circus flick.

No description available.

'Please help me!' the young GDR refugee begs the passengers of the interzonal train 'D 106'. He has just jumped on the night train during an unforeseen stop - to get to the west as quickly as possible. He can't go back, and in less than an hour they reach the German-German border - without stopping. The passengers meanwhile begin to ask themselves serious questions: Am I helping the young man and risking my own safety? Or is that too dangerous for me? While people are racking their brains, not only is the train racing away, but time is too ...

"The Secret Power" - Hardly anyone who strays into the emigrant's restaurant "Strange Bird" would suspect that the porter once was a general, the waiter a prince and the cook an admiral, and that the lady at the bar is actually the princess Sinaide forced was leaving their home.

No description available.

No description available.