DIE HALBSTARKEN

Horst Buchholz

DIE HALBSTARKEN (aka Teenage Wolfpack/1956). Director: Georg Tressler. Colorized. 

A youth gang (of sorts) in post-war Germany is led by Freddy (Horst Buchholz), the most attractive and charismatic of the bunch. He has acquired some of his nasty attitude from his father (Paul Wagner), who has been in a foul mood since his brother-in-law borrowed a significant amount of money and can't repay it. Freddy's younger brother, John (Christian Doermer), is dismayed that his father takes it all out on his mother (Viktoria von Ballasko) and hopes to raise the money to repay his father. Meanwhile Freddy has moved or been thrown out of the house, and has his own place, with his 15-going-on-16 girlfriend, Sissy (Karin Baal), just next door. Freddy concocts a robbery scheme that goes horribly wrong, and discovers that the female of the species may just be deadlier than the male. 

Doermer and Baal

If one is hoping for a serious and thoughtful look at life in post-WW2 Germany, Die Halbstarken is not it. Clearly inspired by Hollywood juvenile delinquency films (which were dubbed and shown in Germany), this picture resembles one of them even down to the jazz score. We've got the restless teenage boys, the sluttish females, the attitude and feeling of wasted lives going nowhere, and all the usual tropes. The acting is quite good, however, with Buchholz (billed as "Henry Bookholt" in the dubbed American version of the film, Teenage Wolfpack, which even played drive-ins in the states) taking top honors but getting competition from Doermer as his nicer and more sensitive brother and Baal as the girlfriend, a blonde Lolita who tries to play both ends against the middle. The supporting cast is also on top of things. Buchholz struts around in tight black leather pants through the whole movie, which is somewhat entertaining if minor. NOTE: After I wrote this review I discovered that I'd already seen and reviewed the darn thing some years ago. I hate when that happens! 

Verdict: Buchholz went on to better things. **3/4. 

CAGNEY BY CAGNEY

CAGNEY BY CAGNEY. James Cagney. Doubleday; 1976.

James Cagney had no particular interest in writing his memoirs, but he was tired of authors getting the facts wrong and decided he had better tell his own story. The first section of the book features a lot of tales detailing just how tough Cagney was growing up in a bad neighborhood where you had to prove yourself with your fists. Cagney wouldn't be the first song and dance man who felt a need to affect a super-macho image. (Ironically, one of his first jobs had him dancing in drag!) The book is more interesting when Cagney gets into his career, and he makes it clear that he considers himself, first and foremost, a dancer. Cagney felt that making movies was a grind, and he wasn't thrilled with some of the by-the-numbers assignments he was thrown into, nor with the fact that real bullets were originally used in scenes with machine guns! (Oddly, he doesn't acknowledge that he was making much, much more money than the average person.) He writes pleasantly of his fellow actors, with two exceptions: an unnamed leading lady whom he finds condescending: and Horst Buchholz, with whom he appeared in One Two Three. When Buchholz tried one of his "scene-stealing didoes," Cagney was going to "knock him on his ass." Cagey was a rarity in that he wasn't that interested in a typical Hollywood lifestyle, preferring to live in the east, and he was happily married to the same woman, a former actress, for a great many years. Liberal in his youth, Cagney became more conservative as he got older, and also became a conservationist. The book is full of ruminations on how the picture business has changed, as well as the country, and includes many samples of his poetry, which is much better than Jimmy Stewart's. Cagney comes off as a moderately cultured man with some good horse sense, who didn't allow his movie stardom to completely define him. He writes bluntly of movie colleagues who just can't accept the fact that their careers are over and no one is interested in them anymore, a fate that did not ensnare Cagney, as he became an icon instead of a has-been.

Verdict: Probably not the last word, but an interesting look at a very interesting and talented actor. ***.

TEENAGE WOLFPACK

Christian Doermer and Horst Buchholz

TEENAGE WOLFPACK (aka Die Halbstarken/1956). Director: Georg Tressler.

Freddy (Horst Buchholz, herein billed as "Henry Bookholt") is a handsome, callous, criminally-inclined young man with a 15-year-old girlfriend, Sissi (Karin Baal), who may be worse than he is. His brother, John (Christian Doermer), is a much more decent lad who, unfortunately, looks up to his brother, who has left home. Freddy enlists some of his friends in an armed robbery that doesn't quite go as he intended, and disaster strikes when Freddy and Sissi break into a restaurant owner's home and John goes after them. Teenage Wolfpack is a dubbed American version of a German film that was clearly influenced by U.S. juvenile delinquent movies, and is hardly any better than most of those. Buchholz [That Man in Istanbul] struts around in tight leather pants, dances a blue streak in a jukebox sequence (probably influenced by Elvis), and exhibits the charisma that turned him, briefly, into an international star. Baal and Doermer are also effective, but the movie's dramatics are unconvincing, and despite the action the film becomes tedious. Nevertheless, some people see this as a West German classic. Not me.

Verdict: I Was a Teenage Frankenstein is more entertaining. **.

THAT MAN IN ISTANBUL

Horst Buchholz

THAT MAN IN ISTANBUL (aka Estambul '65/1965). Director: Antonio Isasi.

Since the extremely popular From Russia With Love took place mostly in Istanbul, is it any wonder that a spy film made the following year would also use the city as its setting? But this flick is perhaps more similar to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in that the hero is a shady character who gets into the spy action for money. An atomic scientist named Pendergast (Umberto Raho) has been kidnapped, but just as he is being returned his plane blows up -- but was he on it? American agent Kelly (Sylvia Koscina) suspects that Tony Mecenas (Horst Buchholz), who has a gambling operation, a few henchmen and many female admirers, might be behind this deception. However, the two wind up working together as a bunch of Chinese (who seem to work for a Spectre-like organization that also has its own island) and assorted roughnecks are out to find Pendergast and kill off anyone who gets in their way. That Man in Istanbul doesn't make a lot of sense, and doesn't begin auspiciously, but it gets a bit better and has some effective sequences, chief among them a fight high in a minaret-like tower, and a suspenseful climax when Tony and Kelly try hard to get away from a boat that's about to explode. Klaus Kinski [The Million Eyes of Sumuru] shows up briefly but has a decent fight-to-the-death with Tony, who runs half-naked through a Woman-Only sauna and winds up in the back seat of a limo with a startled dowager. The film is essentially farcical, with Buchholz turning to the audience at one point and saying, "What -- me worry?" Tony's affectionate nickname for Kelly is "baby fat" and there's another lady named Elisabeth (Perette Pradier) who gets involved in the action. Buchholz [Dead of Night] does not give a bad performance as a "cute" light-hearted operative, but no one would have cast him as Bond. An international "eurospy" co-production.

Verdict: A really good-looking hero never hurts. **1/2.

DEAD OF NIGHT (1977)

DEAD OF NIGHT (1977 telefilm). Director: Dan Curtis.

Curtis followed up his ratings-successful telefilm Trilogy of Terror with this second anthology of horror stories, which was also the pilot for a projected series. In "Second Chance," scripted by Richard Matheson from a Jack Finney story, a man (Ed Begley Jr. of Eating Raoul) restores a car in which a couple was killed years ago, and discovers that it can drive him all the way to the past to prevent their deaths. Ann Doran from It, The Terror from Beyond Space has a supporting role.  "No Such Thing as a Vampire," which Matheson scripted from his own short story, features a fake vampire murder plot, and boasts some very good performances from Patrick Macnee and Horst Buchholz. "Bobby," written by Matheson, also has fine performances from Joan Hackett and Lee H. Montgomery in a story about a grieving mother who thinks she's called her drowned son back from the grave. The story has a good ending, but it is neither frightening nor moving, which you can pretty much say about the movie in general. Curtis remade "Bobby" even less effectively in Trilogy of Terror II. Robert Cobert's score is mediocre and does nothing to help the telefilm.

Verdict: Reasonably entertaining if very minor horror anthology. **1/2.