Wolfgang Preiss
Birth : 1910-02-27, Nuremberg, Germany
Death : 2002-11-27
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Wolfgang Preiss (27 February 1910 at Nuremberg - 27 November 2002 at Baden-Baden) was a German theatre, film and television actor.
The son of a teacher, in the early 1930s Preiss studied philosophy, German and drama. He also took private acting classes with Hans Schlenck, making his stage début in Munich in 1932. He went to appear in various theatre productions in Heidelberg, Königsberg, Bonn, Bremen, Stuttgart and Berlin.
In 1942 he made his film début - he was exempted from military service specifically - in the UFA production Die grosse Liebe with Zarah Leander. After the end of the Second World War Preiss returned to the theatre, and from 1949 worked extensively dubbing films into German.
In 1954 he returned to film acting, appearing in Alfred Weidenmann's Canaris. The following year Preiss played the lead role of Claus von Stauffenberg in Falk Harnack's film Der 20. Juli, which dramatised the 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. This role brought Preiss to popular attention and also the 1956 Federal Film Award.
From now on Preiss was largely typecast in the role of the upright and obligation-conscious German officer to the other A-list actor playing the Fanatic (I.E. Paul Scofeld in The Train) a part he played in many films, later reprising it in numerous international productions, predominantly in Italy and the USA, while occasionally playing a more typically cynical or brutal Nazi officer.
Preiss appeared in such productions as The Longest Day (1962), Otto Preminger's The Cardinal (1963), and with Jean-Paul Belmondo in Is Paris Burning? (1966). He starred alongside Burt Lancaster in John Frankenheimer's The Train (1964), Frank Sinatra in Von Ryan's Express (1965), Robert Mitchum in Anzio (1968), with Richard Burton, in the title role of Erwin Rommel in Raid on Rommel (1971), and The Boys From Brazil (1978) with Gregory Peck. He also appeared in several Italian language films, credited as "Luppo Prezzo", and played Field Marshal Von Rundstedt in Richard Attenborough's all-star war epic A Bridge Too Far (1977).
In addition, for the cinema-going public of West Germany he became the epitome of the evil genius in his role as Doctor Mabuse, a role he first played in 1960 (following Rudolf Klein-Rogge) in Fritz Lang's The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse. He went on to play the role four more times.
In the 1980s Preiss turned to television, notably playing General Walther von Brauchitsch in the American TV mini-series Winds of War and War and Remembrance, based on the books of Herman Wouk.
In 1987 received a second Federal Film Award for his outstanding work in film.
In film dubbing Preiss provided the voice for such actors as Lex Barker, Christopher Lee, Anthony Quinn, Claude Rains, Richard Widmark, as well as that of Conrad Veidt as "Major Strasser" in the remastered version of Casablanca.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Wolfgang Preiss, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Dieter Gekeler (archive footage)
Kessler
In the not-too-distant future Berlin is shocked by a series of spectacular suicides; a policeman's investigations lead him to a beautiful, enigmatic woman and the revelation of a sinister plot to manipulate the population through mass hypnosis.
Bernauer
A young journalist researches the life of his father which leads him to path of contradictions until he uncovers a gruelling truth.
Earl of Wereford
A comedy directed by Franz Josef Gottlieb.
Earl of Wereford
Father Albertus
Earl of Wereford
Baron Gottfried van Swieten
In the dead of night, a few hours after Mozart's death, the usual suspects are summoned to Mozart's room by Count Pergen, head of the secret police, who considered Mozart a potential revolutionary. Over the corpse, he interrogates them, trying to discover the true cause and significance of Mozart's demise.
Earl of Wereford
Brockdorff-Rantzau
Earl of Wereford
Zighi
Over two decades after their affair ended, a married man is haunted by the presence of his former lover.
Franz Tauber
While investigating the death of a friend and fellow cop, Los Angeles police officer Barney Caine stumbles across evidence that Nazis created a synthetic alternative to gasoline during World War II. This revelation has the potential to end the established global oil industry, making the formula a very valuable and dangerous piece of information. Eventually, Caine must contend with oil tycoon Adam Steiffel, who clearly has his own agenda regarding the formula.
Julius Prager
When her father is murdered, a cosmetics heiress becomes the next target of an unknown killer amid the international jet set.
FM Alfred Jodl
Eisenhower the military man is the focus of this mini-series, his relationships with the other wartime leaders, and, very discreetly, his personal relationship with his driver, Kay Summersby.
Thurn
Dr. Reinecke
Lofquist
Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman discovers a sinister and bizarre plot to rekindle the Third Reich.
Oberst
During the final days of the First World War, Officer Menis does his duty in defending the battle flag of the defeated Austro-Hungarian empire, while his fellow troops, a motley gang recruited from several different countries not loyal to the royal family, simply try to survive by any means possible.
Field Marshal Karl R.G. Von Rundstedt
Operation Market Garden, September 1944. The Allies attempt to capture several strategically important bridges in the Netherlands in the hope of breaking the German lines.
General
Artmann
A young peasant named Pierre makes friends with John and his sister Sonia, young bourgeoisie, who invite him to their home. Pierre soon falls in love with Emily, John's mistress. After the death of the father of his hosts, he has the idea of transforming their peaceful house into a brothel.
von Bogendorf
Konsul Eduard van Düren
General
Miller
A master thief, just out of prison, concocts a risky final score that would net him over a million dollars.
Felix Zauner
An American lawyer on vacation in Europe is asked by a book publisher to stop by the Austrian town of Salzburg to see a photographer who's taking pictures for a book on picturesque Austrian lakes. Upon his arrival he senses that something is wrong when the photographer seems to have vanished, leaving a near panic-stricken wife and a sinister, secretive brother. Before he knows it, the lawyer finds himself mixed up with spies, assassins, and the hunt for a list made up by the Nazis during World War II of people who collaborated with them.
Educational film that tells about variants of sexuality.
The Prosecutor
When a young female student is savagely killed in a park during a thunderstorm, the culprit seems obvious: TV sports personality Alessandro Marchi, seen fleeing the scene of the crime by numerous eyewitnesses. The evidence against him is damning... but is it all too convenient? And when the killer strikes again while Marchi is in custody, it quickly becomes apparent that there's more to the case than meets the eye...
Police inspector
A journalist finds himself on the trail of a murderer who's been targeting people around him, while the police are considering him a suspect in their investigation.
Gen. Erwin Rommel
Captain Foster plans on raiding German-occupied Tobruk with hand- picked commandos, but a mixup leaves him with a medical unit led by a Quaker conscientious objector.
Minister
Sir Henri Deterding
Generalmajor Oster
Oberst Dornberger
Generalmajor Lattmann
Italian comedy.
Colonel Ackerman
A British Colonel is angry with his superiors after his entire platoon is slaughtered by the Germans in what he saw as a suicide mission. So for his next mission, he takes along a platoon a convicted criminals - to prepare the Normandy beaches for the D-Day landings. Wartime drama from Italy, starring Jack Palance, Wolfgang Preiss and Curd Jurgens.
Exzellenz Lohmüller
Col. von Haller
A POW in World War II is put to work in a Munich zoo, looking after an Asian elephant. The zoo is bombed by the Americans and the director of the zoo decides it is not safe for his Asian elephant Lucy to remain there. So he sends Brooks to safety with Lucy. They escape and go on the run in order to get to Switzerland.
Field Marshal Albert Kesselring
Allied forces land at Anzio unopposed but instead of moving straight inland their commanding officer decides to dig in. A battle-hardened war correspondent borrows a jeep and drives to Rome and back without meeting any German forces, but his report on this absence of the enemy is discounted. By the time it is finally decided to make a move the Germans have arrived in strength and a prolonged ...
Anthony Wilcox
Dr. Georgi Dimitrov
Father Bricks
A journalist gets involved in a murder case in northern Germany.
Flachsmann
Wilhelm Von Schenk
The protégé of a famous cat burglar reluctantly agrees to join forces with a lesser criminal in the daring heist of several famous jewels from a seemingly impenetrable vault.
Dr. Angus Cromwell
Two French agents fight a Chinese sect that aims to control the American Secretary of Defence via high-tech medicine, so that he would start a world war.
Sebastian (BND chief)
Millionaire Baretti pays a gang to rob an atomic bomb from an American silo, and then blackmails the American Government for a huge amount of money. German secret service (BND) agent 'Dynamite' will use his fists, guns and more to try to stop them.
Noland
A thief gets hold of some top secret papers and is chased around Europe by the sinister Organisation.
Robert
Leiter der Mordkommission
Capitaine Ebernach
Near the end of World War II, Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it becomes clear the Allies are going to invade, or if he cannot maintain control of the city. After much contemplation Choltitz decides to ignore his orders, enraging the Germans and giving hope to various resistance factions that the city will be liberated. Choltitz, along with Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling, helps a resistance leader organize his forces.
Chalieff
A French secret agent gets a license to kill when he is sent to Vienna to plug a security leak in this routine spy saga. He is caught in the crossfire of international enemy agents trying to eliminate the French.
Minister
Parisius
Kapitän Behrens
Captain Parker
CIA agent Jeff Larson is sent to investigate suspicious activities at a U.S. base located in southern Spain. He discovers the base is being heavily monitored by the KGB via hidden cameras and moles within the base, and he must find a way to ferret the traitors out whilst avoiding discovery of his investigation.
Major Von Klemment
Von Ryan's Express stars Frank Sinatra as a POW colonel who leads a daring escape from WWII Italy by taking over a freight train, but he has to win over the British soldiers he finds himself commanding.
Sheik Abengalbon
Don Fernando, the son of El Cid, rallies peasants and townspeople to overthrow Moorish occupiers in medieval Spain.
Maj. Herren
As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasures but have received orders from London that they are not to be destroyed. The station master, Labiche, is tasked with scheduling the train and making it all happen smoothly but he is also part of a dwindling group of resistance fighters tasked with preventing the theft. He and others stage an elaborate ruse to keep the train from ever leaving French territory.
Dr. Mabuse
The evil Dr. Mabuse develops a death ray with which he threatens the world.
Grenner
A greedy gold smuggler hires a handsome hero to transport a stolen fortune to a new hideout accompanied by the smuggler's sexy girlfriend.
Dr. Peter Morell
Staatsanwalt Ted Talbot
Prof. von Adelsberg
The German police cannot solve the mystery of the seven murders which have alarmed the local villagers. They call in Inspector Doren of Interpol, and the only clue the Chief Constable can give the detective is the fact that, each time a murder was committed, the electric lights in the whole neighborhood went out. The locals believe that the killings of the young girls are linked to the vague shadows in the caves under the local castle and to the mysterious Curse of the Green Eyes.
A young Catholic priest from Boston confronts bigotry, Nazism, and his own personal conflicts as he rises to the office of cardinal. Photochemical preservation by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
Morel Smith
A group of hooded vigilantes hang wrong-doers with a rope stolen from Scotland Yard's Black Museum.
Geist von Dr. Mabuse
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.
Charles Reese
Stanislas Raskin
After a truck carrying a cargo of narcotics is held up by rival smugglers, the driver sets out to prove his innocence.
James Merrill
Maj. Gen. Max Pemsel
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"
Dr. Mabuse
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.
Colonel Nordoff
Blacklisted in modern day WW2, a Swedish oil trader opts to assist British Allies, by means of infiltrating and surveying Nazi Germany.
Dr. Krone / Dr. Mabuse
Strange things happen in a revue theatre. The dancer Maria seems to be hunted by an invisible admirer. When the body of a probable FBI agent is found in a trunk the police asks FBI man Joe Como for help. Como gets interested in the revue theatre and an ominous transport firm soon. When he is receiving mysterious threatening letters he is sure that Dr. Mabuse has risen again. But what is going on at "Enterprise X" so that both the goverment and the mad genius in crime are interested in it?
Staatsanwalt Soldan
Baron Kalb
Arthur Dahlberg
Günther Brandt
Dr. Mabuse
The supposedly dead and buried Mabuse returns to his criminal activities, as his longtime foe Police Inspector Lohmann, a dauntless girl reporter, and an American - who may be an FBI agent, or maybe a Chicago mobster - investigate a series of gruesome murders connected to a maximum security prison and involving a minister who has written a book called "The Anatomy Of The Devil".
Prof. Jordan/Peter Cornelius/Dr. Mabuse
A reporter is murdered while driving to his job. The Police are contacted by a clairvoyant who saw the death in a vision, but some dark force is preventing him from seeing the man behind the crime...
Doctor Loren Bolem
Hans von Arnam travels to a Flemish village to study a strange carousel located in an old windmill that displays famous murderesses and other notorious women from history. Professor Gregorius Wahl, owner of the windmill, warns Hans to stay away from his mysterious daughter Elfi, in order to keep Hans from discovering the horrible secret shared by the Professor and Elfi's Doctor.
Brandes
Karin is now continuing her father's research and is also caught in the cross hairs of the mysterious opponents. Johanson himself retreats to a Cambodian monastery in order to escape the gangsters' shots and recover. Meanwhile, the international criminals manage to steal Johanson's energy formula. Karin then goes after the thieves, supported by Lundstrom. But he also has his own goals. The hunt takes them around the world. It soon turns out that a certain Madame Latour is behind the sinister machinations. Eventually old Johanson falls into her hands. In Southeast Asia, a showdown ensues between the kidnappers and Lundstrom and Karin.
Dr. Henrik Brandes
Professor Johansson has made a huge scientific breakthrough; a device that will create a huge magnetic pulse that knocks out all electricity over a continent-wide area. The military applications are already being thought of when Dr. Johansson is kidnapped by a group of profit-seeking mercenaries. Meanwhile, his daughter, Karin, finds herself having to consort with all manner of shady characters as she searches for her father.
Dr. Beck
The film depicts the first month of 1945 when the Russian Red Army broke into the eastern part of Germany and forced millions of civilians to flee in the coldest of winter. While the Russians invaded Ostpreussen hundred of thousands of civilians were evacuated by ships. Gotenhafen was the last open port and ships left the town almost by the minute, overloaded by refugees. One of the last ships to leave Gotenhafen was the 'Wilhelm Gustloff', a former 'Kraft durch Freude' pleasure cruiser designed for 1000 passengers. Until today it is unknown how many people were on board but it is said to be around 10.000. The ship sunk without a trace and only a handful of people survived this hellish nightmare.
Otto Lohn
This is the third feature in a series about an intrepid French spy by the nickname of "The Gorilla," but unlike the earlier films, this time around Roger Hanin replaces Lino Ventura in the title role. A West German scientist has discovered a way to recover missiles shot into space, and the major Western powers are after his secret. Even though the scientist is willing to pass his discovery on to NATO, it is guarded by an elite, undercover West German police force. As foreign agents, including the Russians and Americans, try to get their hands on the secret, "The Gorilla" is forced into the affair by his surly, aging boss -- he has to make sure that the scientist's discovery ends up with NATO.
Generalstaatsanwalt
April 1945. Because he stole two bars of chocolate, the soldier Rudi is sentenced to death by the court-martial judge Dr. Schramm. Rudi manages to escape from the firing squad at the last minute, and since the end of the war has been making a meager living as a street peddler. Years later, Dr. Schramm is now a respected public prosecutor. By chance, he runs into Rudi one day on the street. Afraid that Rudi will blow the whistle on him, Dr. Schramm wants to scare him out of town. He has Rudi arrested and bullied by the police.
Dr. Westorp
Robert Jacobi
Major Linkmann
In the winter of 1943, against the background of battle scenes, a young German Lieutenant who increasingly distrusts the inhuman Nazi ideology struggles with the concept of war.
General Gorew
Prisoner of the Volga
Joseph Blake
Carlo Gormann
A police commissioner investigates an auto theft ring in Hamburg following the murder of an inspector.
Kriminalkommissar Dr. Jäger
Murder mystery about the disappearance of a boy who has leukaemia following the murder of his mother, which he witnessed.
Oberstabsarzt Munkler
German Paratroopers are ordered to hold the line at Monte Cassino in Italy, and halt the allied advance on Rome.
Hans
In a German prison camp, some Italian prisoners bet with the commander that they will be able to build a church in two hours.
Dr. Leipold
Dulac
Amerikaner
U-Bootkommandant Lüttke
Four young German naval cadets begin their military service in 1940; only one of them will survive.
Gendarm Adam
Heinz Becker
Mario Clar
Mac Fadden
In 1920, an unknown 24-year-old woman was fished out of Berlin's Landwehr kanal after a suicide attempt. Since she has no papers and no answers to any questions, they soon assign them to the insane asylum Dallendorf. A co-patient believes she recognizes the Czar's daughter Anastasia Romanowa - who apparently was the only one who survived the murder of the tsar's family in 1918.
Alfred Linder
Dr. Hahnefeld, Syndikus der Clausen-Werke
Based on a play by Gerhardt Hauptmann, the film details a bittersweet May-December romance between ageing Mathias Clausen (Albers) and young, beautiful Inken Peters (Annemarie Dueringer).
Freiherr von Pirovano
Adventure film based on a Rilke poem.
Oberst Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
A disillusioned Wehrmacht officer named Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944.
Dr. Hartung
Oberst Holl
Admiral Canaris is chief of the intelligence service of Nazi Germany. His department is quite successful and Hitler grants him all the money he wants for new developments. Still he's a thorn in the side of the Nazi chiefs, since he's not as unscrupulous as they want him and is known to criticize their ideology.
Staffelarzt Dr. Wagner
German film about Luftwaffe pilots. It depicts a love triangle involving two of them being overcome by their participation in battle together.
Oberleutnant von Etzdorf
The attractive Oberleutnant Paul Wendlandt is stationed in North Africa as a fighter pilot. While in Berlin to deliver a report he is given a day's leave, and on the stage of the cabaret theatre "Skala" sees the popular Danish singer Hanna Holberg. For Paul it is love at first sight. When Hanna visits friends after the end of the performance, he follows her, and speaks to her in the U-Bahn. After the party in her friends' flat, he accompanies her home and chance throws them further together when an air raid warning forces them to take cover in the air raid shelter. Hanna reciprocates Paul's feelings, but after a night spent together Paul has to return immediately to the front. There now follows a whole series of misunderstandings, and one missed opportunity after another. While Hanna waits in vain for some sign of life from Paul, he is flying on missions in North Africa. When he tries to visit her in her Berlin flat, she is giving a Christmas concert in Paris.
