Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef was a German actress, singer, and writer. She was billed in some English-language films as Hildegard Neff or Hildegarde Neff.
Oskar Werner was an Austrian stage and cinema actor whose prominent roles include two 1965 films, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold and Ship of Fools. Other notable films include Decision Before Dawn (1951), Jules and Jim (1962), Fahrenheit 451 (1966), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) and Voyage of the Damned (1976).
The year 1951 in film involved some significant events.
John Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred as Admiral Harriman Nelson in the television science-fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964–68). He also portrayed Wilton Knight in the pilot episode of the TV series Knight Rider (1982), and provided the narration that was heard during the opening credits throughout the entire series.
Hangmen Also Die! is a 1943 war film directed by the Austrian director Fritz Lang and written by John Wexley from a story by Bertolt Brecht and Lang. The film stars Brian Donlevy, with Walter Brennan, Anna Lee, and Gene Lockhart, and Dennis O'Keefe in support. Alexander Granach has a showy role as a Gestapo detective, and Hans Heinrich von Twardowski has a cameo as Reinhard Heydrich. Hanns Eisler composed the Academy Award nominated score, and James Wong Howe was cinematographer.
Valentina Cortese, sometimes credited as Valentina Cortesa, was an Italian film and theatre actress. In her 50 years spanning career, she appeared in films of Italian and international directors like Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Franco Zeffirelli, François Truffaut, Terry Gilliam, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and others.
Gary Fred Merrill was an American film and television actor whose credits included more than 50 feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances. He starred in All About Eve and married his costar Bette Davis.
Oskar Homolka was an Austrian film and theatre actor, who went on to work in Germany, Britain, and America. Both his voice and his appearance fitted him for roles as communist spies or Soviet officials, for which he was in regular demand. By the age of 30, he had appeared in more than 400 plays; his film career covered at least 100 films and TV shows.
Anatoly Mikhailovich LitvakOBE, better known as Anatole Litvak, was a Ukrainian-born American filmmaker who wrote, directed, and produced films in various countries and languages. He began his theatrical training at age 13 in Petrograd, Russia.
Rescue Dawn is a 2006 epic war drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog, based on an adapted screenplay written from his 1997 documentary film Little Dieter Needs to Fly. The film stars Christian Bale and is based on the true story of German-American pilot Dieter Dengler, who was shot down and captured by villagers sympathetic to the Pathet Lao during an American military campaign in the Vietnam War. Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies, Pat Healy, and Toby Huss also have principal roles. The film project, which had initially come together during 2004, began shooting in Thailand in August 2005. It received critical acclaim but was a box office failure.
The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse is a 1960 black-and-white crime thriller film directed by Fritz Lang in his final film. A West German/French/Italian international co-production, it starred Peter van Eyck, Dawn Addams and Gert Fröbe. The film made use of the character Dr. Mabuse, who had appeared in earlier films by Lang in 1922 and 1933. The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse spawned a film series of German Mabuse films that were released over the following years to compete with Rialto Film's Krimi films.
Gustav Friedrich Fröhlich was a German actor and film director. He landed secondary roles in a number of films and plays before landing his breakthrough role of Freder Fredersen in Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis. He remained a popular film star in Germany until the 1950s.
Alraune, later renamed Unnatural: The Fruit of Evil, is a 1952 black and white West German science fiction film, directed by Arthur Maria Rabenalt and starring Hildegard Knef and Erich von Stroheim. The film is based on the 1911 novel Alraune by German novelist Hanns Heinz Ewers. The plot involves a scientist who creates a woman (Knef) who is beautiful and yet soulless, lacking any sense of morality.
'Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus' is a German film editor who was a member of the New German Cinema movement and is noted particularly for her many films with director Werner Herzog. Between 1966 and 1986, she was credited on more than twenty-five feature films and feature-length documentaries.
Hans Christian Blech was a German film, stage and television character actor who found success in both Germany and Hollywood.
Erich Gustav Otto Engel was a German film and theatre director.
Werner Fuetterer was a German film actor. He appeared in nearly 100 films between 1925 and 1967.
Wilfried Seyferth was a German actor, perhaps best known for Decision Before Dawn.
George Locke Howe was an author, architect, and Office of Strategic Services officer in World War II. His experiences in the OSS were the basis of his novel Call It Treason, which was adapted as the 1951 film Decision Before Dawn.
