Felix Bressart

Felix Bressart

Born: March 2, 1892
Died: March 17, 1949
in Eydtkuhnen, East Prussia, Germany [now Chernyshevskoe, Russia]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Felix Bressart (March 2, 1892 – March 17, 1949) was a German-American actor of stage and screen.

Felix Bressart (pronounced "BRESS-ert") was born in East Prussia, Germany (now part of Russia) and was already a very experienced stage actor when he had his film debut in 1928. He started off as a supporting actor, e.g. as the Bailiff in the box-office hit Die Drei von der Tankstelle (1930), but had soon established himself in leading roles of minor movies. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, Jewish-born Bressart had to leave Germany and continued his career in German-speaking movies in Austria, where Jewish artists were still relatively safe. After no fewer than 30 films in eight years, he emigrated to the United States.

One of Bressart's former European colleagues was Joe Pasternak, now a successful Hollywood producer. Bressart's first American film was Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939), a vehicle for Universal Pictures' top attraction, Deanna Durbin. Pasternak also selected the reliable Bressart to perform in a screen test opposite Pasternak's newest discovery, Gloria Jean. The influential German community in Hollywood helped to establish Bressart in America, as his earliest American movies were directed by Ernst Lubitsch, Henry Koster, and Wilhelm Thiele (director of Die Drei von der Tankstelle).

Bressart scored a great success in Lubitsch's Ninotchka, produced at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM signed Bressart to a studio contract in 1939. Most of his MGM work consisted of featured roles in major films like Edison, the Man.

He combined his mildly inflected East European accent with a soft-spoken delivery to create kindly, friendly characters, as in Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be, in which he sensitively recites Shylock's famous "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech from The Merchant of Venice. Lubitsch also directed Bressart to similar effect in The Shop Around the Corner.

Bressart soon became a popular character actor in films like Blossoms in the Dust (1941), The Seventh Cross (1944), and Without Love (1945). Perhaps his largest role was in RKO Radio Pictures' "B" musical comedy Ding Dong Williams, filmed in 1945. Bressart, billed third, played the bemused supervisor of a movie studio's music department, and appeared in formal wear to conduct Chopin's "Fantasie Impromptu."

After almost 40 Hollywood pictures, Felix Bressart suddenly died of leukemia at the age of 57. His last film was My Friend Irma (1949), the movie version of a popular radio show. Bressart died during production, forcing the producers to finish the film with Hans Conried. In the final film, Conried speaks throughout, but Bressart is still seen in the long shots.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Felix Bressart, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.    

Movies for Felix Bressart...

Take One False Step
Title: Take One False Step
Character: Professor Morris Avrum
Released: August 14, 1949
Type: Movie
Catherine Sykes disappears after a midnight drive with Professor Andrew Gentling . When she's presumed murdered, his friend Martha convinces him that he's a prime suspect and should investigate before he's arrested.
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Portrait of Jennie
Title: Portrait of Jennie
Character: Pete
Released: December 25, 1948
Type: Movie
A mysterious girl inspires a struggling artist.
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A Song Is Born
Title: A Song Is Born
Character: Professor Gerkikoff
Released: October 19, 1948
Type: Movie
The story of seven scholars in search of an expert to teach them about swing music. They seem to have found the perfect candidate in winsome nightclub singer Honey Swanson. But Honey's gangster boyfriend doesn't want to give her up.
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I've Always Loved You
Title: I've Always Loved You
Character: Frederick Hassman
Released: December 2, 1946
Type: Movie
A beautiful young concert pianist is torn between her attraction to her arrogant but brilliant maestro and her love for a farm boy she left back home.
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Her Sister's Secret
Title: Her Sister's Secret
Character: Pepe
Released: September 23, 1946
Type: Movie
A WWII tale of romance that begins during New Orlean's "Mardi Gras" celebration when a soldier and a girl meet and fall in love. He asks her to marry him but she decides to wait until his next leave. He is sent overseas and she does not receive his letter and feels abandoned, but she does find out she is pregnant. She gives the child to her married sister and does not see her child again for three years. She returns to her sister's home to reclaim the child, and the soldier, who has been searching for her, also turns up. The sister is not interested in giving up the child. Written by Les Adams
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The Thrill of Brazil
Title: The Thrill of Brazil
Character: Ludwig Kriegspiel
Released: September 6, 1946
Type: Movie
Steve, revue producer in Rio de Janeiro, is still in love with his ex-wife Vicki, his star Linda is in love with Steve and Tito is in love with Linda. Because of this they all get small problems.
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Ding Dong Williams
Title: Ding Dong Williams
Character: Hugo Meyerheld
Released: April 15, 1946
Type: Movie
Ding Dong Williams, a clarinet player who can neither read nor write music is employed at a motion picture studio. The studio plans to use him and his six-piece band but his musical deficiencies are discovered and the plan scrapped. But the secretary of the head of the music department intercedes on his behalf and he is given a chance in the film.
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Dangerous Partners
Title: Dangerous Partners
Character: Professor Budlow
Released: June 7, 1945
Type: Movie
A young couple's accident could make them rich, if they can evade a Nazi spy ring.
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Without Love
Title: Without Love
Character: Prof. Ginza
Released: March 22, 1945
Type: Movie
In World War II Washington DC, scientist Pat Jamieson's assistant, Jamie Rowan, enters a loveless marriage with him. Struggles bring them closer together.
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Blonde Fever
Title: Blonde Fever
Character: Johnny
Released: December 5, 1944
Type: Movie
Peter and Delilah are a married couple running a roadside café in Nevada. Their stable partnership turns rocky, though, with the arrival of the sultry Sally, a waitress who catches Peter's wandering eye. Delilah strikes back by hiring Sally's boyfriend as a waiter. Sally is initially dismissive of Peter's advances, but when he wins $40,000 in a lottery, she quickly pounces, turning on the charm and eyeing the easy life.
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Greenwich Village
Title: Greenwich Village
Character: Hofer
Released: September 27, 1944
Type: Movie
In 1922, a would-be classical composer gets involved with people putting on a musical revue.
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The Seventh Cross
Title: The Seventh Cross
Character: Poldi Schlamm
Released: July 24, 1944
Type: Movie
In Nazi Germany in 1936 seven men escape from a concentration camp. The camp commander puts up seven crosses and, as the Gestapo returns each escapee he is put to death on a cross. The seventh cross is still empty as George Heisler seeks freedom in Holland.
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Song of Russia
Title: Song of Russia
Character: Petrov
Released: February 10, 1944
Type: Movie
American conductor John Meredith and his manager, Hank Higgins, go to Russia shortly before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Meredith falls in love with beautiful Soviet pianist Nadya Stepanova while they travel throughout the country on a 40-city tour. Along the way, they see happy, healthy, smiling, free Soviet citizens, blissfully living the Communist dream. This bliss is destroyed by the German invasion.
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Don't Be a Sucker!
Title: Don't Be a Sucker!
Character: Anti-Nazi Teacher
Released: June 4, 1943
Type: Movie
Propaganda short film depicting the rise of Nazism in Germany and how political propaganda is similarly used in the United States. The film was made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces.
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Above Suspicion
Title: Above Suspicion
Character: Mr. A. Werner
Released: May 31, 1943
Type: Movie
Two newlyweds spy on the Nazis for the British Secret Service during their honeymoon in Europe.
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Three Hearts for Julia
Title: Three Hearts for Julia
Character: Anton Ottoway
Released: May 21, 1943
Type: Movie
When his wife threatens him with divorce, a reporter courts her again.
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Iceland
Title: Iceland
Character: Papa Jonsdottir
Released: September 21, 1942
Type: Movie
Marine James Murfin, is unaware of Icelandic customs. When he flirts with Katina her Icelandic family take his actions as a proposal of marriage to Katina. Desperately wanting out, James gets his buddy to help him.
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Crossroads
Title: Crossroads
Character: Dr. Andre Tessier
Released: July 23, 1942
Type: Movie
A French diplomat who's recovered from amnesia is blackmailed over crimes he can't remember.
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To Be or Not to Be
Title: To Be or Not to Be
Character: Greenberg
Released: March 5, 1942
Type: Movie
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
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Mr. and Mrs. North
Title: Mr. and Mrs. North
Character: Arthur Talbot
Released: January 23, 1942
Type: Movie
Married sleuths (Gracie Allen, William Post Jr.) find a corpse in their closet and round up suspects.
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Kathleen
Title: Kathleen
Character: Mr. Schoner
Released: December 18, 1941
Type: Movie
Kathleen is a twelve-year-old who lives in a big house with a nanny, a butler, maids, no mother and a father who is working most of the time. She dreams of a family with a mother, father and her, and tells everyone that she has such a family. Because of this story, she cannot invite any friends over as they will see that it is not true.
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Married Bachelor
Title: Married Bachelor
Character: Professor Milic
Released: October 16, 1941
Type: Movie
A man's marriage suffers when he pretends to be a bachelor while promoting "his" best-selling book about married life (actually written by an eccentric professor) in order to pay off a debt to a gangster.
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Blossoms in the Dust
Title: Blossoms in the Dust
Character: Dr. Max Breslar
Released: August 15, 1941
Type: Movie
Edna marries Texan Sam Gladney, operator of a wheat mill. They have a son, who is killed when very young. Edna discovers by chance how the law treats children who are without parents and decides to do something about it. She opens a home for foundlings and orphans and begins to place children in good homes, despite the opposition of "conservative" citizens, who would condemn illegitimate children for being born out of wedlock. Eventually Edna leads a fight in the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records in that state, while continuing to be an advocate for homeless children.
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Ziegfeld Girl
Title: Ziegfeld Girl
Character: Mischa
Released: April 25, 1941
Type: Movie
Discovery by Flo Ziegfeld changes a girl's life but not necessarily for the better, as three beautiful women find out when they join the spectacle on Broadway: Susan, the singer who must leave behind her ageing vaudevillian father; vulnerable Sheila, the working girl pursued both by a millionaire and by her loyal boyfriend from Flatbush; and the mysterious European beauty Sandra, whose concert violinist husband cannot endure the thought of their escaping from poverty by promenading her glamor in skimpy costumes.
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Comrade X
Title: Comrade X
Character: Igor Yahupitz / Vanya
Released: December 13, 1940
Type: Movie
An American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country.
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Bitter Sweet
Title: Bitter Sweet
Character: Max
Released: November 8, 1940
Type: Movie
In order to avoid an arranged marriage with a man she doesn't love, Sarah Millick runs off to Vienna with her music teacher, Carl Linden, whom she does love. They are married. In Vienna, they struggle to make a living by making music. Carl writes an operetta and tries to get it produced. They are helped along by Viennese Baron, but his intentions are not honorable. He kills Carl in a sword fight. A big producer does put on the operetta, with Sari in the lead -- but without her husband, it is a bittersweet victory.
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Escape
Title: Escape
Character: Fritz Keller
Released: November 1, 1940
Type: Movie
An American goes to pre-war Germany to find his mother and discovers her in a concentration camp. With the help of an American-born widowed countess he seeks to engineer her escape.
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Third Finger, Left Hand
Title: Third Finger, Left Hand
Character: August "Gussie" Winkel
Released: October 11, 1940
Type: Movie
Magazine editor Margot Merrick pretends to be married in order to avoid advances from male colleagues. Unfortunately, things don't go to plan when Jeff Thompson, a potential suitor, uncovers the deception and decides to show up at Margot's family home posing as her husband!
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Edison, the Man
Title: Edison, the Man
Character: Michael Simon
Released: May 10, 1940
Type: Movie
In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.
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It All Came True
Title: It All Came True
Character: The Great Boldini
Released: April 6, 1940
Type: Movie
After crooked nightclub owner murders a police informant, he blackmails his piano player to allow him to stay at his eccentric mother's boarding house.
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The Shop Around the Corner
Title: The Shop Around the Corner
Character: Pirovitch
Released: January 12, 1940
Type: Movie
Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realising that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.
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Swanee River
Title: Swanee River
Character: Henry Kleber
Released: December 29, 1939
Type: Movie
Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century Fox biopics of the time, the film is more fictional than factual biography.
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Ninotchka
Title: Ninotchka
Character: Comrade Buljanoff
Released: November 23, 1939
Type: Movie
A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
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Bridal Suite
Title: Bridal Suite
Character: Maxl
Released: May 26, 1939
Type: Movie
A carefree playboy with an aversion to marriage falls for a lass he meets in the French Alps.
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Three Smart Girls Grow Up
Title: Three Smart Girls Grow Up
Character: Music Teacher
Released: March 24, 1939
Type: Movie
Three sisters who believe life is going to be easy, now that their parents are back together, until one sister falls in love with another's fiancé, and the youngest sister plays matchmaker.
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Heut' ist der schönste Tag in meinem Leben
Title: Heut' ist der schönste Tag in meinem Leben
Character: Max Kaspar
Released: May 21, 1936
Type: Movie
Two twin brothers working in a Vienna fair and who are both gifted for singing meet different luck both in love and their careers.
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Four and a Half Musketeers
Title: Four and a Half Musketeers
Character: Professor Volksmann
Released: October 1, 1935
Type: Movie
A Hungarian-Austrian comedy and one of the last emigrant films made in Austria before the industry submitted to pressure from Nazi Germany and ceased to employ Jewish filmmakers.
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Ball im Savoy
Title: Ball im Savoy
Character: Birowitsch
Released: April 11, 1935
Type: Movie
Musical comedy set in a Grand Hotel.
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Everything for the Company
Title: Everything for the Company
Character: Philipp Sonndorfer
Released: April 4, 1935
Type: Movie
Familial disputes surrounding a traditional business. Grandfather Sonndorfer allies himself with his grandson Otto, in order to bring his arrogant son Max on the right path. Between the fronts is Emmerich Liebling, the intriguing messenger.
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Peter
Title: Peter
Character: Grandfather
Released: December 19, 1934
Type: Movie
Starring Francisca Gaál in a breeches role. Dressed as a boy, a street musician gets a job pumping gas. When s/he starts to have feelings for her patron, watch out for complications in this comedy shot in German in Budapest.
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Salto in die Seligkeit
Title: Salto in die Seligkeit
Character: Kriegel, Geheimdetektiv
Released: October 31, 1934
Type: Movie
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C'était un musicien
Title: C'était un musicien
Character: Baron Vandernyff
Released: May 11, 1934
Type: Movie
When he is not conducting his orchestra, a talented young man invents a device to thwart car thieves.Associating himself with a rich Dutch baron, he falls in love with the baron's daughter.
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Wie d'Warret würkt
Title: Wie d'Warret würkt
Character: Mr. Schramek
Released: December 1, 1933
Type: Movie
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...und wer küßt mich?
Title: ...und wer küßt mich?
Character: Direktor Ritter
Released: March 7, 1933
Type: Movie
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The Lucky Top Hat
Title: The Lucky Top Hat
Character: Gottfried Jonathan Bankbeamter
Released: August 18, 1932
Type: Movie
Gottfried Jonathan, a small civil servant, lives as a lodger and is roommates with the blonde Käthe. Although she tries very hard, she can’t find a job and can no longer afford her rent of 40 marks. Jonathan secretly loves Käthe and decides to raise the necessary money for her.
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Holzapfel Knows Everything
Title: Holzapfel Knows Everything
Character: Johannes Georg Holzapfel
Released: February 5, 1932
Type: Movie
An unemployed man who plays a concertina gets involved with a band of crooks and tries to frustrate a kidnapping, in this farcical caper.
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Visul lui Tanase
Title: Visul lui Tanase
Character: star
Released: January 1, 1932
Type: Movie
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The Office Manager
Title: The Office Manager
Character: Joachim Reißnagel
Released: November 19, 1931
Type: Movie
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Excursion into Life
Title: Excursion into Life
Character: Hirsekorn - Schauspieler und Chauffeur
Released: September 30, 1931
Type: Movie
Felix Bressart, later one of the most delightful members of the Ernst Lubitsch "stock company," plays the title character in the Austrian comedy Hirsekorn Greift Ein (Hirsekorn Does Something About It). It's a typical worm-turns affair, as a mild-mannered provincial actor ends up working as a chauffeur for a scatterbrained female novelist. Slapstick is the order of the day, except in the scenes involving heroine Charlotte Susa. Guiding the actors through their paces was Rudolf Bernauer, a stage actor-manager of vast experience. Critics in 1931 felt that Hirsekorn Greift Ein was too thin to be stretched to 90 minutes.
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Fanfare about love
Title: Fanfare about love
Character: Major Fröschen
Released: September 3, 1931
Type: Movie
Caught by Archduke Max in an embarrassing situation with Marie-Charlote, Captain Rudi is forced into marriage. Yet he approaches actress Josefine, the Archduke's girlfriend, being outright transferred as punishment. Then both girls appear.
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No More Love
Title: No More Love
Character: Jean
Released: July 26, 1931
Type: Movie
An American millionaire, who had always bad luck with women, bets that he can live without them for five years. But after four and a half years traveling around on his yacht, he rescues a lady from drowning in the English Channel.
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Terror of the Garrison
Title: Terror of the Garrison
Character: Musketier Kulicke
Released: April 23, 1931
Type: Movie
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True Jacob
Title: True Jacob
Character: Böcklein
Released: March 16, 1931
Type: Movie
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Private Secretary
Title: Private Secretary
Character: Bankdiener Hasel
Released: January 16, 1931
Type: Movie
During hard times, a vivacious girl looks for an office job in the hope of landing a rich man. The director of the bank she works at flirts with her while not at first revealing his identity so she rejects him.
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Eine Freundin so goldig wie Du
Title: Eine Freundin so goldig wie Du
Character: Richard
Released: December 15, 1930
Type: Movie
The lively Anny meets the nice Dr. Jack Braun and throws everything in his life into disarray. As Jack is in the middle of divorce proceedings against his wife Renate, his lawyer and best friend Richard doesn't like the idea of a female being in his vicinity. Then Jack's heiress Frieda comes to visit, and when she finds Anny in Jack's house, she mistakes her for his wife - and finds her extremely charming. When the aunt's parrot dies, the relatives believe that the aunt has died and rush to claim the inheritance. Anny emerges victorious from all this.
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Three days of middle arrest
Title: Three days of middle arrest
Character: Franz Nowotni
Released: November 10, 1930
Type: Movie
When an attractive maid in a garrison town becomes pregnant, she reveals that one of three soldiers stationed there who had been chasing after her, is responsible.
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Old Song
Title: Old Song
Character: Jacques
Released: October 15, 1930
Type: Movie
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The Three from the Filling Station
Title: The Three from the Filling Station
Character: Gerichtsvollzieher
Released: September 15, 1930
Type: Movie
Die Drei von der Tankstelle, meaning The Three from the Gas Station, was advertised as a German operetta when release and with it’s star studded cast would become the forerunner of Musical films. Even today the soundtrack of the comic harmonists is popular in Germany.
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Die zärtlichen Verwandten
Title: Die zärtlichen Verwandten
Character: Onkel Emil
Released: August 28, 1930
Type: Movie
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The fight with the dragon or: The tragedy of the lodger
Title: The fight with the dragon or: The tragedy of the lodger
Released: August 13, 1930
Type: Movie
A meek clerk can no longer abide the nastiness of his boarding house proprietress and takes drastic action.
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There is a woman who will never forget you
Title: There is a woman who will never forget you
Released: March 27, 1930
Type: Movie
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Liebe im Kuhstall
Title: Liebe im Kuhstall
Character: Der Gerichtsvollzieher
Released: October 19, 1928
Type: Movie
An impoverished nobleman would rather chase after the local milkmaid than seek a wealthy match, to the chagrin of his family.