News

What, another docu about Nazis? Rüdiger Suchsland’s show tells the entire story — with many rare clips and interesting actor and filmmaker profiles — of the hundreds of state-produced German films made during the Third Reich. It’s the most thorough, informative and eye-opening show on the subject I’ve yet seen. It comes with revelations about some surprising names, like Douglas Sirk and Ingrid Bergman.

Hitler’s Hollywood

DVD

Kino Lorber

2017 / Color & B&W / 1:78 enhanced widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date July 10, 2018 / Hitlers Hollywood: Das deutsche Kino im Zeitalter der Propaganda 1933 – 1945 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Narrated by Udo Kier

With film clips of Hans Albers, Heinz Rühmann, Zarah Leander, Ilse Werner, Marianne Hoppe, Gustaf Gründgens, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Alfred Abel, Lída Baaroví, Willy Fritsch, Gustav Fröhlich, Lilian Harvey, Johannes Heesters, Brigitte Helm, Paul Henreid, Margot Hielscher, Emil Jannings, Pola Negri, Magda Schneider, Kristina Söderbaum, Anton Walbrook.

Film Editor: Ursula Pürrer

Produced by Gunnar Dedio,...

Sales agent Wide House is to be reunited with German filmmaker Rüdiger Suchsland on his next documentary Hitler’s Hollywood for delivery next year.

Wide House’s Anais Clanet confirmed at this week’s Dok Leipzig that she will be handling sales on Suchland’s new project after selling his first documentary, From Caligari To Hitler [pictured], which premiered at Venice 2014 in the Classics sidebar.

Speaking to ScreenDaily in Leipzig, Suchsland revealed that his second collaboration with the Berlin-based Looks Film & TV and Wiesbaden’s Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation has already received backing from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, HessenInvestFilm, and broadcasters Zdf/Arte.

“Hollywood was always something that the Nazis wanted to emulate,” he explained with reference to the film’s title.

“Speeches and documents provide evidence that there was a clear plan by the Nazis, and particularly Goebbels and Hitler, to establish a kind of alternative Hollywood, to copy Hollywood’s international success and to use it for Nazi...

London, Dec 26: A Dutch-born actor who is said to have been a particular favourite of Adolf Hitler, died Dec. 24 at a hospital in Starnberg, Germany. He was 108.

Johannes Heesters rose to fame in Germany in the 1930s, becoming a crowd favourite at Berlin's Komische Oper and Admiralspalast, Sky News reported.

Even after the war, Heesters was allowed to keep performing because the allies did not believe he was involved in propaganda or Nazi activities.

But his willingness to perform for Hitler's regime meant that he was treated as an outcast in his native country, which had suffered terribly under Nazi occupation.

The.

Happy holidays indeed: Letter to Jane editor Tim Moore presents his last copy of Cahiers du Cinema in English (you may remember a couple of others). Number 11, from September 1967, features "Orson Welles and Jack Falstaff," a dossier with an interview with Welles and contributions from Serge Daney and others, plus articles on Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel and more — and editor Andrew Sarris publishes stills Curtis Harrington sent to him from the set of Games (1967).

Lists. For the Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern, Asghar Farhadi's A Separation is the best film of 2011; the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle goes for Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist.

Obits. "Doe Avedon, a bookish beauty reluctantly transformed into a high-fashion model at the hands of a visionary photographer, Richard Avedon — a story that inspired the 1957 musical Funny Face, about a bookish beauty (Audrey Hepburn) reluctantly transformed into a high-fashion model at the hands...

Berlin -- Dutch-born entertainer Johannes Heesters, who made his name performing in Adolf Hitler's Germany and was dogged later in his long career by controversy over his Nazi-era past, died Saturday, his agent said. He was 108.

The tenor Heesters made his debut on the big stage at the Volksoper in Vienna, Austria in 1934. His career took off in Berlin where, starting in 1935 – two years after the Nazis took power – he became a crowd favorite at the Komische Oper and Admiralspalast.

He gained fame by appearing in films such as "Die Leuchter des Kaisers" ("The Emperor's Candlesticks") and "Das Hofkonzert" ("The Court Concert").

Despite his popularity in the Third Reich, Heesters was never accused of being a propagandist or anything other than an artist willing to perform for the Nazis, and the Allies allowed him to continue his career after the war, when he took Austrian citizenship.

Heesters died early Saturday...

Dutch actor and singer Johannes Heesters has quit smoking ahead of his 107th birthday in a bid to live "as long as possible".

The star will turn a year older on Sunday and he admits his love for his 61-year-old wife, German actress Simone Rethel, inspired him to kick his nicotine addiction once and for all.

Heesters, who ditched cigarettes last month, tells Germany's Bunte magazine, "I did it for love, for my wonderful wife. She should have me as long as possible."

The couple wed in 1992.