Wolfgang Staudte

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An unemployed engineer working as a driver at an oil company hears about a lost Inca treasure and goes in search of it.

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MS Franziska is a German television series.

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After the death of her husband, a woman becomes entangled in an extortion scheme.

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Drama about the shipwreck of the frigate "Méduse" off the coast of Senegal. In France, the commander responsible, Chaumarey, is finally put on trial.

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Joseph Völz, a punctual, rule-bound tax officer from Cologne’s Bergisches Land, expects life to run like his orderly forms, until his daughter Grete, back from Scotland, rejects his small-town ways for big-city Berlin. Unable to reach her in Cologne, Völz and his friend Schickedanz follow her to the capital. There, Joseph is charmed by a hotel clerk and briefly considers remarriage, while Schickedanz’s own advances also fail. Ultimately, Grete returns home, teaching Joseph that his rigid world only seems turbulent to himself.

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America at the end of the 19th century: news spreads like wildfire that gold has been found in the Klondike. Half of America is in an uproar. Among the adventurers is the young lawyer Elam Harnish from San Francisco. Over the next few months, he experiences unique adventures with the hard search for gold, the merciless nature and the shrewd stock market sharks of the big city...

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Erik Hoopen’s “Oversea Travel Agency” in Hamburg fronts an international gold‐smuggling ring. Couriers hide gold bars in special vests, exporting them to black markets in Cairo, Khartoum, Hong Kong, and Singapore and returning with suitcases of cash. Fierce underworld competition leads to thefts and murders. Central to the intrigue is mysterious locker #763, tying the criminal network together.

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Grete, the daughter of the widowed Cologne dog tax inspector Joseph Völz, once married a British occupying soldier and followed him to the Scottish provinces. When she now visits her father, he soon realizes that her marriage has gone awry. He tries to resolve the crisis by taking a trip to Scotland, but his insensitive nature causes even more damage, even though he gets on well with his son-in-law - who ensures that the whisky is properly taxed at the local factory.

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Sequel of "The Sea Wolf". The writer van Weyden, who escaped from Captain Larsen's ship, follows the trail of his enemy for years in order to take revenge. He finds him as a man who has been mentally and physically destroyed by other criminals.

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Detective Heinz Ebelings car breaks down with a broken windshield and a defective fuel pump on the way to Frankfurt. On the way to the next village, Ebeling witnesses a murder and other crimes, which he tries to solve.

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Writer Humphrey van Weyden is thrown overboard in a shipwreck in the Bay of San Francisco, and is rescued by the seal-hunting schooner 'Ghost' under the command of the brutal Captain Wolf Larsen.

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The dangerous violent criminal Willy Jensen flees from a prison in Hamburg and seeks shelter at his brother Heinz' apartment. Heinz, an honest taxi-driver, believes in his innocence and helps him - until Willy kills another man in a robbery. After an argument Willy takes his wife Vera, who now lives with Heinz, as hostage on his further flight from the police. Heinz feels responsible for his brother and trails him, which makes it look to the police as if he's helping his brother.

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Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.

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tv-movie by Wolfgang Staudte

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Bruno Stiegler, a boxing promoter with a disreputable past, returns from America to Berlin to make some big things again with his friends. Fatally, he is always preceded by some gentlemen from better circles who are developing amazing criminal activity in their old days. They are led by Oberlandesgerichtsrat a. D. Herbert Zänker, whom it still hisses, that he could bring in his term Bruno never behind bars.

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Der Kommissar is a German television series about a group of detectives of the Munich homicide squad. All 97 episodes, which were shot in black-and-white and first broadcast between 1969 and 1976, were written by Herbert Reinecker and starred Erik Ode as Kommissar Herbert Keller. Keller's assistants were Walter Grabert, Robert Heines, and Harry Klein who, in 1974, was replaced by his younger brother Erwin Klein.

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People from all over the world spend their summer holidays at the Black Sea. German Walter and his girlfriend Gisela check in at the hotel as spouses. Walter uses the passport of his wife. The police find the body of a young woman washes up by the waves. Inspector Damyanov begins an investigation. Walter is not under suspicion, but he is ill at ease. It is because of his wife passport? Ex-Nazi officer Kunze has his own little secret and causes for worry. Dutch musician Jan has something on his conscience, too, after a little love with a Bulgarian girl. Having penetrated the unsavory secrets of all those people, Damyanov leads them to the conviction that it is difficult to live a life of deception.

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In the crazy twenties, safecracker Orje is released from prison and, through the mediation of his friend Nelly, finds a job at the "Sparverein Biene". The honorable gentlemen train him as a pimp, but because he is bored, he starts an affair with Olga. Soon his colleagues are planning his murder.

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A group of West German men on a stag party find themselves stranded in a Montenegrin village inhabited only by vengeful women since all their men were shot during the war.

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Movie based on the novel by Christel Broehl-Delhaes

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Tom Finberg and Nick Dorland, two highly competent divers working for the Caribbian Oil Company, have been the best friends in the world since the day they met. But this wonderful friendship is endangered by their falling in love with the same young woman, Juana, the young owner of a hacienda. Worse, following a misunderstanding, generated by the belle's scheming uncle, Pedro de Alvarado, the two men fall out with each other. But when Tom is trapped under the surface of the burning ocean, Nick finally comes to his rescue.

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Across German screens at the outbreak of WWII streaks "DIII88: The New German Air Force Attacks", an aeronautic and maritime spectacle glorifying Hermann Goring's Luftwaffe and the spirit of the newly arisen Germany. Once war became imminent, Joseph Goebbels instructed the German film industry to initiate production of numerous militaristic projects, but DIII88 was initiated by the Propaganda Minister's rival, Goring, who commissioned several aviation pictures. DIII88 is not a war picture per se, because it takes place in peacetime, but the young, fresh-faced air aces enthusiastically look forward to the coming war. The propaganda is blatant: The only thing that matters is dedication to duty and unconditional commitment to the Fatherland.

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A soldier thinks about leaving the army for a woman. His friends try to stop him.

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Young Percy Averhoff returns to Hamburg after a five-year stay abroad and finds that his parents have already found a bride for him. The young man however has his own ideas, and rebelliously answers a contact ad in which a girl is looking for a young man as a companion for a car trip to Southern Germany. Soon the two of them are on the way. What Percy doesn't know is that the damsel is none other than the girl his parents have chosen for him.

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The stories' setup: a bunch of passive weaklings being dominated by two strong and ambitious women who fight for the same man.

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This Nazi propaganda film chronicles the rise of the German Air Force ("Luftwaffe") from World War I until Adolf Hitler took power in 1933.

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A WWI veteran comes home and with a scientist's help opens an artificial silk factory later used for clothing. Crooked international profiteers ,a lawyer and a banker, threaten the profitability of the concern and the workers' jobs.

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A wrecked car is found on the Reichsautobahn between Hamburg and Bremen. Inside is a murdered woman. It soon becomes clear that the woman is the dancer Grazielle Holm. The investigators are certain: it was murder! But unfortunately there are far too many suspects...

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Renate Hubricht finds her uncle, the money broker Theodor Hubricht, murdered in his villa. That very night, the banker Lorik is arrested, who was last seen in Hubricht’s house. Renate, who doesn’t wish to live alone in the eerie estate lodges with the lawyer Dr. Birk. She doesn’t tell him, that her lover, the musician Robert Wendland, had an argument with her uncle on the evening of the murder. When Lorik is sentenced to 10 years prison, Renate is thrown into a quandary. She believes she’s protecting the real culprit with her silence.

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A young woman from the Berlin slums gets her chance to move into a new suburban home with her boyfriend, when she wins a lottery.

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A Czarist refugee, separated from her husband, gets a job as a nightclub singer in Vienna and has to decide later if she wants to rejoin him.

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After a burn-out Karl spends time in his home region, the Black Forest. His car gets lost and is picked up by penniless magician Amadori who enjoys posing as wealthy entrepreneur Karl while Karl reunites with the love of his youth, Liesl.

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The story of the rise to power of King Frederick II (aka "Frederick the Great") of Prussia of his military campaigns to make Prussia a major power in Europe.

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Just for fun and to prove to the daughter of the castle lord how courageous they are, three young men agree to each spend one night in the "blue room“ of the castle. Years ago two people lost their lives in this room under most mysterious circumstances. Ever since, the door to the room has been locked. The youngest of the three men insists upon spending the first night in the blue room. At exact 1 a.m. a shot rings out...

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Shortly after the outbreak of World War I August 1914, Eastern Front. The Russian surprise attack on the northeasternmost part of the country causes serious problems for the German defenders.

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A recent rediscovery, master cinematographer Schüfftan’s only film as a director is a free-spirited, fast-paced ode to being young, free, hopeful... and completely broke.

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The story is set in Berlin at the beginning of the 20th century. The members of a singing group live in poor conditions in a dilapidated building. When the manager of the property is murdered, Peter and Paul, both members of the singing group, become suspects in the murder. When they return from a performance, the police are waiting for them to take them in for questioning. Since Paul is the most likely perpetrator according to the investigation, he is arrested immediately.

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When a group of idealistic young men join the German Army during the Great War, they are assigned to the Western Front, where their patriotism is destroyed by the harsh realities of combat.

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Prim professor Immanuel Rath finds some of his students ogling racy photos of cabaret performer Lola Lola and visits a local club, The Blue Angel, in an attempt to catch them there. Seeing Lola perform, the teacher is filled with lust, eventually resigning his position at the school to marry the young woman. However, his marriage to a coquette -- whose job is to entice men -- proves to be more difficult than Rath imagined.

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In 1959, in a small German village, the annual fair is set up. When a carousel is fixed firmly in the ground, a fair worker discovers a skeleton, a steel helmet, and a machine gun. The skeleton belongs to Robert Mertens, a plain soldier, who deserted in 1944 und flew to his home village. But when he arrived, no one wanted to help him, neither his former friends nor the minister, or even his own parents.

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A "mufti" version of Hamlet, with young Hardy Krüger trying to prove that his uncle has killed his father. Direct references to the Shakespeare original abound, right down to the re-enactment of the crime for the benefit of the Uncle and the periodic appearances of the ghost of the hero's father.'

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“Ciske de Rat” belongs to the Dickensean “little man’s hard life” model and tells a deceptively simple story about a boy in modern Netherlands. Persecution, loneliness, adults’ hostility, fear, mixture of obstinacy and tenderness, and even an imprisonment. Excellent camera movement and delicate portraying of Ciske’s fragile soul put this film out of merely historical context and ensure its place in the history of great cinema.

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On a barren and stormy island, fishing families eke out a meager existence on what they can catch during summer, and what washes ashore during winter. But little has been washing ashore of late, and their situation worsens. Elders recall how twenty years ago, when the lighthouse keeper’s beacon went dark, a cargo ship broke apart on the cliffs. It proved a bountiful accident for the fishermen. Today people on the island view the conscientious lighthouse keepers with evil hungry eyes...

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An old man living in an oriental city tells the story of his life to a group of kids: He too was once a young boy by the name of Little Muck - much like them, but with better manners and a heap of problems. Having lost his father at early age, little Muck is expelled from home by his greedy relatives. He wanders off into the desert hoping to find the merchant who sells good fortune. Amidst the dunes of sand he comes across a small house owned by a wicked woman and her many cats. She wants to make Little Muck her servant, but he manages to escape by stealing a pair of magic shoes which enable him to run faster than any man in the country. From there he heads right into the next set of challenges...

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Diederich Heßling is scared of everything and everyone. But as he grows up, he comes to realize that he has to offer his services to the powers-that-be if he wants to wield power himself. His life motto now runs: bow to those at the top and tread on those below. In this way, he always succeeds: as a student in a duel-fighting student fraternity and as a businessman in a paper factory. He cajoles the obese district administrative president Von Wulkow and wins his favor. He slanders his financial rivals and hatches a plot with the social democrats in the town council. On his honeymoon with his rich wife Guste, he finally finds a chance to do his beloved Kaiser a favor. And when a memorial to the Kaiser is unveiled in the town where Diederich lives and works, he delivers the address. He stands behind the lectern in the pouring rain, saluting his Kaiser. The crowd is dispersed. Everything is laid in ruins...

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The mechanic Behnke wants to join the Nazi party to secure a good living. However, after his Jewish neighbors have been taken away, he changes his views. Trying to remain "a non-political man," he withdraws from reality and becomes a Nazis laborer.

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A man's life breaks down in pursuit of material success.

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A decent small-town citizen named Fridolin Biedermann travels to Berlin and wants to finally experience something. And he succeeds. First he falls into the hands of a couple of crooks who rip him off terribly, and - back home - the law...

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After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds a traumatized ex-soldier living in her apartment in bombed out Berlin. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.

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During his trip to the city, a naïve man from the countryside falls victim to a thief who steals his wallet. Since all his personal documents were in it, he not only looses his money but also his identity. The thief turns out to be a cunning con man, who uses the papers for his criminal schemes. Soon enough, a warrant is issued, and eventually both men – the thief and the innocent guy – are arrested. But since all the red tape of the government causes even more confusion, the odyssey of the victim searching for his lost identity has just started.

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Charlie, a very gifted, young acrobat, cannot find employment. A dancer and colleague, whom he trained, has gotten him a job as a stagehand at a vaudeville theatre. After a number of chaotic events and some highs and lows - none of which ever discourage him - his hour arrives: an act can't go on and "Akrobat schööön" can finally make his grand entrance.

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Wolfgang Staudte's first short film, which he produced in 1933 for Ethos-Film GmbH in Berlin. Staudte not only directed, but also wrote the script.

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