Hannes Stelzer

The famous tightrope artist Truxa is drinking at the Artisan bar in New York. He meets a young man, Husen, and gives him his stage name Truxa. He is to take the real Truxa's place at a circus show in Wintergarten, Berlin.

This film is a fascinating showcase for Emil Janning's theatrical play. He's a gentle school teacher who believes in his boys and is easily fooled about all things, while the other town officials want him dismissed. Curiously it's very hard to see what the film is exactly aiming for. Disaster strikes and the lax prof proves to be too far removed of the real problems of the world, on the other hand his enemies are shown in the most unsympathetic, satirical way denouncing the militaristic, bourgeois ideology of the Kaiserreich.

This Nazi propaganda film details the exploits of a group of German Luftwaffe pilots flying Stukas--fighter-bombers--in the Battle of France in the early days of World War II.

A gambling-drama based on Dostoevsky’s works: The retired General Kirileff is addicted to gambling and also has a costly affair. He takes out a loan from the greedy imposter Vincent, for which he is to pay an exorbitant interest rate. Vincent, for his part, wants to get closer to Kirileff’s daughter Nina, who is to inherit her grandmother’s fortune one day. Nina tries to help her father and goes to the gambling tables, only to lose a lot of money. She asks Alexej, her father’s secretary, to play for her. Alexej is in love with Nina and would do anything for her. He plays; at first loses; then asks Nina to get Vincent out of there. Once that happens, he wins a large amount of money, becomes overbearing and treats Nina like a prostitute.

The residents of the villages Strasslach and Rott are anything but friends. The residents of the “enemy” town are ridiculed at every chance the residents of the other village can get to do so. And it’s no different, when Rott is getting ready to celebrate the 300th anniversary of its founding. The residents of Strasslach ridicule their neighbors, because the Rotters don’t want to celebrate the anniversary, because it’ll cost money. Even the church doesn’t have an organ, because that would cost money, too.

During the Great War, German soldiers are persuaded to die heroically in order to take a French village held by the British.

German film about Luftwaffe pilots. It depicts a love triangle involving two of them being overcome by their participation in battle together.

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Nazi propaganda film chronicling the plight of Germans caught by the outbreak of war in 1939 and their frantic attempts to return to the Fatherland to join the battle.

Produced by the Nazis in honor of the 150th anniversary of Mozart's death: a celebration of his music, as the film shows him traveling to Prague for the Don Giovanni premiere and inspired by his wife to compose the finale.

Der Herrscher (The Sovereign) was based on Before Sunset, a play by Gerhart Hauptmann. The great Emil Jannings stars as Mathias Clausen, a self-made businessman who is forced to do a great deal of soul-searching when his wife unexpectedly dies. Determining to start life anew, he falls in love with his secretary Inken (Marianne Hoppe) and impulsively takes a vacation to Italy. Clausen's selfish grown children, not wishing to share their father's affections -- nor his money -- with his new wife-to-be, go to court demanding that Clausen be declared mentally incompetent. Upon finding this out, Clausen flies into a rage, leaving the audience to wonder whether or not he really as gone off his trolley. Der Herrscher was directed by Veit Harlan, more famous (or notorious) for his viciously anti-Semitic Jud Suess (1940).

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Fernand has escaped from prison and finds shelter in the traveling circus Barlay, where his former wife Flora works as a predator trainer. Their son, now grown up, Marcel is an art rider and does not know that Fernand is his father. Marcel loves Yvonne, the daughter of director Barlay. He is against the connection, sends his daughter to Italy and convinces Marcel that Yvonne does not return his feelings.

New Year’s Eve should be a time of joy for everyone. But Herr Reinhardt has decided to take his life on this evening. During his last conversation with his friend, Dr. Storp, the good doctor convinced him to wait until the following morning to kick the bucket and instead spend a happy evening with him in the emergency room on Alexanderplatz. It turns out to be an instructive night for Reinhardt. Life’s different fates play out before his eyes.

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At the turn of the century in Munich, a ballerina accepts the sponsorship of an older industrialist but also spends time with his son.

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