Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies

West German Classic with Curd JÜRGENS, Claire BLOOM and Mario ADORF

Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles in Jane Eyre (1943)

Diana Dors in Tread Softly Stranger (1958)

Rudolf Forster and Curd Jürgens in Brainwashed (1960)

Hansjörg Felmy and Curd Jürgens in Brainwashed (1960)

Mario Adorf, Albert Bessler, Alan Gifford, Jan Hendriks, Curd Jürgens, and Dietmar Schönherr in Brainwashed (1960)

Mario Adorf, Claire Bloom, Hansjörg Felmy, and Curd Jürgens in Brainwashed (1960)

Curd Jürgens

Claire Bloom

Hansjörg Felmy

Stefan Zweig

Harold Medford

Gerd Oswald

In 1938 Austria shortly after the Nazi occupation, a prominent Viennese intellectual, Werner von Basil, is arrested for smuggling art treatures out of the country and imprisoned by the Gestapo in a hotel room without any mental su...

Schachnovelle

A leading cultural personality is pressured by the Nazis to reveal his secrets

This was the first adaptation of Stefan Zweig&apos;s famous (and last story) of an intellectual brainwash procedure conducted by the Gestapo to make a rescuer of Austrian art treasures talk, which procedure fails, since the victim is fortunate enough to get hold of a small booklet of chess games, which prompts him to intellectual training even in solitary confinement without any other intellectual stimulus. Fortunately this film (in black and white) was remade in 2021 (in colour) in a much more elaborate and cinematic outfit, greatly enlarging and developing the material into a consummate masterpiece. This is not bad, but Curd Jurgens overdoes it with violent outbursts which are quite unnecessary and brings the story to a lower level. The action is swift and a little too fast in hurrying up to the crisis, which impedes the credibility. Philipp Stölz&apos; modern version sustains the credibility better. Curiously enough, Hansjörg Felmy as the SS officer is almost exactly reproduced in the same style and character in the modern film, with the same suavity and elegance. What saves the film is Claire Bloom as the ballerina, who tips Jurgens to save what he can in time and later brings him back to life, who always made a fine appearance, but she is not in the book. She saves this film though.

This was the first adaptation of Stefan Zweig's famous (and last story) of an intellectual brainwash procedure conducted by the Gestapo to make a rescuer of Austrian art treasures talk, which procedure fails, since the victim is fortunate enough to get hold of a small booklet of chess games, which prompts him to intellectual training even in solitary confinement without any other intellectual stimulus. Fortunately this film (in black and white) was remade in 2021 (in colour) in a much more elaborate and cinematic outfit, greatly enlarging and developing the material into a consummate masterpiece. This is not bad, but Curd Jurgens overdoes it with violent outbursts which are quite unnecessary and brings the story to a lower level. The action is swift and a little too fast in hurrying up to the crisis, which impedes the credibility. Philipp Stölz' modern version sustains the credibility better. Curiously enough, Hansjörg Felmy as the SS officer is almost exactly reproduced in the same style and character in the modern film, with the same suavity and elegance. What saves the film is Claire Bloom as the ballerina, who tips Jurgens to save what he can in time and later brings him back to life, who always made a fine appearance, but she is not in the book. She saves this film though.

In 1938 Austria shortly after the Nazi occupation, a prominent Viennese intellectual, Werner von Basil, is arrested for smuggling art treatures out of the country and imprisoned by the Gestapo in a hotel room without any mental sustence of any kind to break him down to make him talk while a young ballerina, named Irene Adreny whom is the lover of the SS officer Berger playing mind games on von Basil, tries to intervene and help the poor intellectual keep his mind intact.

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