Helmut Dantine

Helmut Dantine

Born: October 7, 1918
Died: May 2, 1982
in Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Helmut Dantine was an Austrian-American actor who often played Nazis in thriller films of the 1940s. His best-known performances are perhaps the German pilot in Mrs. Miniver, and the desperate refugee in Casablanca, who tries gambling to obtain travel visa money for himself and his wife. As his acting career waned, he turned to producing.

Dantine enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles. His relatives thought he would go into business, but he became interested in theater. He began his U.S. acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse, while running two gas stations in order to pay his expenses. Dantine was spotted by a talent scout from Warner Bros, who signed him to a contract.

Dantine had uncredited parts in International Squadron and To Be or Not to Be, before his first credited role in MGM's Mrs. Miniver, playing a downed German pilot captured by the title character (played by Greer Garson). It was a huge hit, and Dantine received much positive attention from being in the film. In August 1942, Warners signed him to a new acting contract. The studio kept him busy with roles in the World War II films, The Pied Piper, Desperate Journey fighting Errol Flynn, and The Navy Comes Through. He had a sympathetic role in Casablanca, as a young refugee trying and failing to earn money via gambling. Warners begin to give Dantine more sizeable roles in their "A" films, Watch on the Rhine, Edge of Darkness, playing a Nazi officer, again fighting Errol Flynn, and Mission to Moscow, playing a sympathetic Russian.

Dantine's good looks caused him to receive a lot of fan mail and, in the words of one profile, "the studio began to realize it had something else besides a Hollywood Hitlerite on its hands". Warners announced they had bought Night Action by Norman Krasna as a vehicle for Dantine, but the film appears not to have been made. Instead, he had a large role playing the villain in Northern Pursuit (1943), as a Nazi running loose in northern Canada fighting Errol Flynn again.

Warner Bros. later cast him in a sympathetic role in Passage to Marseille, and he was one of several stars in Hollywood Canteen. In 1944, exhibitors voting for "Stars of Tomorrow", picked Dantine at number 10. Warners gave him a sympathetic lead in Hotel Berlin, as the leader of the German underground. He was once again a Nazi on-the-run in Escape in the Desert, a remake of The Petrified Forest. His last role for Warners was in the film noir, Shadow of a Woman. He then left the studio.

As his acting career wound down, he became a vice-president of Hollywood mogul Joseph Schenck's company, Schenck Enterprises, in 1959; Schenck was his wife's uncle. He later went to work as producer with Robert L. Lippert Productions and then as president of Hand Enterprises Inc.

Among Dantine's later screen appearances, there were three films for which he was the executive producer: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and The Killer Elite, both directed by Sam Peckinpah, and The Wilby Conspiracy. He was also in The Fifth Musketeer and Tarzan the Apeman.

On 2 May 1982, Helmut Dantine died in Beverly Hills from a heart attack at age 63. According to one obituary, "He specialized in portrayals of Nazis, sometimes as the handsome but icy SS sadist battling Allied heroes, sometimes as a sympathetic German soldier forced, against his better judgment, to fight".

Movies for Helmut Dantine...

The Fifth Musketeer
Title: The Fifth Musketeer
Character: Spanish Ambassador
Released: April 6, 1979
Type: Movie
King Louis XIV has without his knowledge a twin brother, Philippe, but when he is told, he immediately locks up his brother in the Bastille. The king wants to increase his popularity and stages an assassination against himself where Philippe is dressed as king Louis. But Philippe manages to escape the assassination and everybody believes him to be the real king...
bee
The Killer Elite
Title: The Killer Elite
Character: Vorodny
Released: December 19, 1975
Type: Movie
Mike Locken is one of the principal members of a group of freelance spies. A significant portion of their work is for the CIA, and while on a case for them one of his friends turns on him and shoots him in the elbow and knee. His assignment, to protect someone, goes down in flames. He is nearly crippled, but with braces is able to again become mobile. For revenge as much as anything else, Mike goes after his ex-friend.
bee
The Wilby Conspiracy
Title: The Wilby Conspiracy
Character: Prosecuting Counsel
Released: February 1, 1975
Type: Movie
Having spent 10 years in prison for nationalist activities, Shack Twala is finally ordered released by the South African Supreme Court but he finds himself almost immediately on the run after a run-in with the police. Assisted by his lawyer Rina Van Niekirk and visiting British engineer Jim Keogh, he heads for Capetown where he hopes to recover a stash of diamonds, meant to finance revolutionary activities, that he had entrusted to a dentist before his incarceration. Along the way, they are followed by Major Horn of the South African State security bureau and it becomes apparent that he has no intention of arresting them until they reach their final destination
bee
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Title: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Character: Max
Released: August 1, 1974
Type: Movie
An American bartender and his prostitute girlfriend go on a road trip through the Mexican underworld to collect a $1 million bounty on the head of a dead gigolo.
bee
Title: Night Gallery
Released: December 16, 1970
Type: TV
Rod Serling narrates an anthology of fantasy, horror and sci-fi stories from a set resembling a macabre museum. A chilling work of art serves as the connective link between the stories.
bee
The File on Devlin
Title: The File on Devlin
Character: Hans Raedler
Released: November 21, 1969
Type: Movie
A young woman finds herself engulfed in Cold War intrigue when her father, a Nobel Prize-winning author, vanishes while travelling near the Russian border. Entrusted by her father with an unfinished book he was working on before his trip, the young woman becomes engaged in a power struggle over the material with her estranged stepmother. Suspiciously befriended by a journalist in the midst of the crisis, the young woman ultimately learns that no one is to be trusted - as her father's work is of interest to the intelligence departments of several countries.
bee
Title: Run for Your Life
Character: Erich Krieger
Released: September 13, 1965
Type: TV
Run for Your Life is an American television drama series starring Ben Gazzara as a man with only a short time to live. It ran on NBC from 1965 to 1968. The series was created by Roy Huggins, who had previously explored the "man on the move" concept with The Fugitive.
bee
Operation Crossbow
Title: Operation Crossbow
Character: General Linz
Released: April 1, 1965
Type: Movie
Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their secrets and sabotage the plant.The film alternates between German developments of the V-1 missile and V-2 rocket (with a German cast speaking their own language) and discovery by British Intelligence of the weapon.
bee
Title: The Rogues
Character: Colonel von Reichert
Released: September 13, 1964
Type: TV
The Rogues is an American television series that appeared on NBC from September 13, 1964, to April 18, 1965, starring David Niven, Charles Boyer, and Gig Young as a related trio of former conmen who could, for the right price, be persuaded to trick a very wealthy and heinously unscrupulous mark. Although it won the 1964 Golden Globe award for Best Television Series, the show was cancelled after one season consisting of thirty episodes.
bee
Tempest
Title: Tempest
Character: Shvabrin
Released: December 1, 1958
Type: Movie
A young officer in the army of Empress Catherine of Russia is on his way to his new duty station at a remote outpost. During a blinding snowstorm he comes upon a stranger who was caught in the storm and is near death from freezing. He rescues the man and eventually brings him back to health. When the man is well enough to travel, the two part company and the man vows to repay the officer for saving his life. Soon after he arrives at his new post, a revolt by the local Cossacks breaks out and the fort is besieged by the rebels. The young officer is astonished to find out that the leader of the rebellious Cossacks is none other than the stranger whose life he had saved during the storm.
bee
Fraulein
Title: Fraulein
Character: Lt. Hugo von Metzler
Released: June 8, 1958
Type: Movie
In melodramatic fashion, the film tells the tale of a young German woman who finds herself alone in the world when the rest of her family is killed in a WWII air raid. Helping an American military man escape the Gestapo, she finds herself on the run from the Russian Army. Escaping to the American (and safe) side of Berlin, she registers herself as a prostitute (unknowingly) and finds herself caught between the German officer who thinks she is for sale and the American officer who she saved and is now in love with her.
bee
The Story of Mankind
Title: The Story of Mankind
Character: Marc Antony
Released: November 8, 1957
Type: Movie
The devil and the spirit of mankind argue as to whether or not humanity is ultimately good or evil.
bee
Title: The Thin Man
Released: September 20, 1957
Type: TV
Nick Charles was a private detective who married the wealthy Nora and decided to settle down and leave the good life. Unfortunately for the couple, Nick's past frequently caught up with him and got the couple involved in mystery after mystery. The series was based on the popular MGM series of movies of the 1930's starring William Powell and Myrna Loy. Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk starred as the televison versions of Nick and Nora which ran on NBC for two seasons from 1957-59.
bee
Title: Sugarfoot
Character: Maj. Horst von Hoffstadt
Released: September 17, 1957
Type: TV
Sugarfoot is an American western television series that aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. The series stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. Jack Elam is cast in occasional episodes as sidekick Toothy Thompson. Brewster was a correspondence-school student whose apparent lack of cowboy skills earned him the nickname "Sugarfoot", a designation even below that of a tenderfoot.
bee
Hell on Devil's Island
Title: Hell on Devil's Island
Character: Paul Rigaud
Released: August 4, 1957
Type: Movie
An ex-con from Devil's Island enlists the support of the governor's daughter in exposing a prison mining operation.
bee
Kean: Genius or Scoundrel
Title: Kean: Genius or Scoundrel
Character: Lord Mewl
Released: March 4, 1957
Type: Movie
England, first half of the 19th century. Edmund Kean is a celebrated theatre actor, notorious for his tumultuous private life. He is in love with the beautiful countess Koefeld, wife of the Danish ambassador, to the consternation of his friend, the Prince of Wales. He is also hounded by Anna Damby, who wants to become an actress to escape a marriage to Lord Mewill.
bee
War and Peace
Title: War and Peace
Character: Dolokhov
Released: August 21, 1956
Type: Movie
Napoleon's tumultuous relations with Russia including his disastrous 1812 invasion serve as the backdrop for the tangled personal lives of two aristocratic families.
bee
Alexander the Great
Title: Alexander the Great
Character: Nectenabus
Released: March 28, 1956
Type: Movie
An engrossing spectacle set in the 4th-century BC, in which Alexander of Greece leads his troops forth, conquering all of the known world, in the belief that the Greek way of thinking will bring enlightenment to people. The son of the barbaric and ruthless King Philip of Macedonia, Alexander achieved glory in his short but remarkable life.
bee
Title: The Millionaire
Character: Prof. Josef Marton
Released: January 19, 1955
Type: TV
An anthology series that explored the ways sudden and unexpected wealth changed life for better or for worse. It told the stories of people who were given one million dollars from a benefactor who insisted they never know him, with one exception.
bee
Title: Climax!
Character: Daniel
Released: October 7, 1954
Type: TV
Climax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa. It was one of the few CBS programs of that era to be broadcast in color. Many of the episodes were performed and broadcast live.
bee
Title: Studio 57
Released: September 21, 1954
Type: TV
Studio 57 is an American anthology series that was broadcast on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network from September 1954 to September 1955, and in syndication from 1955 to 1956.
bee
Stranger from Venus
Title: Stranger from Venus
Character: The Stranger
Released: August 23, 1954
Type: Movie
Stranger from Venus (a.k.a. Immediate Disaster and The Venusian) is the story of a woman who meets a stranger with no pulse who has the power of life and death at his touch. He is here from Venus to warn Earth about the atom.
bee
Call Me Madam
Title: Call Me Madam
Character: Prince Hugo
Released: March 25, 1953
Type: Movie
Washington hostess Sally Adams becomes a Truman-era US ambassador to a European grand duchy.
bee
Title: General Electric Theater
Character: Manson
Released: February 1, 1953
Type: TV
General Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan that was broadcast on CBS radio and television. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public Relations.
bee
Guerrilla Girl
Title: Guerrilla Girl
Character: Demetri Alexander
Released: January 23, 1953
Type: Movie
Thriller - During World War II, Helmut Dantine specialized in playing villainous Nazis in Hollywood melodramas. He offers a compelling performance in a variation of these earlier roles in this suspense filled and politically loaded tale of intrigue. The story opens in German-occupied Athens during the darkest hours of the war. Civilians are not allowed on the streets after dark. - Helmut Dantine, Marianna, Irene Champlin
bee
Title: Hallmark Hall of Fame
Character: Hans Raedler
Released: December 24, 1951
Type: TV
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The longest-running primetime series in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning during 1951 and continuing into 2013. From 1954 onward, all of its productions have been shown in color, although color television video productions were extremely rare in 1954. Many television movies have been shown on the program since its debut, though the program began with live telecasts of dramas and then changed to videotaped productions before finally changing to filmed ones. The series has received eighty Emmy Awards, twenty-four Christopher Awards, eleven Peabody Awards, nine Golden Globes, and four Humanitas Prizes. Once a common practice in American television, it is the last remaining television program such that the title includes the name of the sponsor. Unlike other long-running TV series still on the air, it differs in that it broadcasts only occasionally and not on a weekly broadcast programming schedule.
bee
Title: Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Character: Peter
Released: October 5, 1951
Type: TV
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars is an anthology series that was telecast from 1951 until 1959 on CBS. Offering both comedies and drama, the series was sponsored by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. The title was shortened to Schlitz Playhouse, beginning with the fall 1957 season.
bee
Title: Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Released: October 5, 1951
Type: TV
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars is an anthology series that was telecast from 1951 until 1959 on CBS. Offering both comedies and drama, the series was sponsored by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. The title was shortened to Schlitz Playhouse, beginning with the fall 1957 season.
bee
Title: Lights Out
Released: July 19, 1949
Type: TV
Lights Out was an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contributed three of the scripts. NBC asked Cooper to write the script for the premiere, "First Person Singular", which is told entirely from the point of view of an unseen murderer who kills his obnoxious wife and winds up being executed. Variety gave this first episode a rave review ("undoubtedly one of the best dramatic shows yet seen on a television screen"), but Lights Out did not become a regular NBC-TV series until 1949.
bee
Title: Suspense
Released: January 6, 1949
Type: TV
Suspense is an American television anthology series that ran on CBS Television from 1949 to 1954. It was adapted from the radio program of the same name which ran from 1942 to 1962. Like many early television programs, the show was broadcast live from New York City. It was sponsored by the Auto-Lite corporation, and each episode was introduced by host Rex Marshall, who promoted Auto-Lite spark plugs, car batteries, headlights, and other car parts. Some of the early scripts were adapted from Suspense radio scripts, while others were original for television. Like the radio program, many scripts were adaptations of literary classics by well-known authors. Classic authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, and Charles Dickens all had stories adapted for the series, while contemporary authors such as Roald Dahl and Gore Vidal also contributed. Many notable actors appeared on the program, including Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Franchot Tone, Robert Emhardt, Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, and many more. The program was a live television series, but most episodes were recorded on kinescope. However, only about 90 of the 260 episodes survive today.
bee
Title: Studio One
Character: Dr. Roland Maradick
Released: November 7, 1948
Type: TV
An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions.
bee
Whispering City
Title: Whispering City
Character: Michel Lacoste
Released: November 20, 1947
Type: Movie
After hearing that a famous actress is dying in a hospital after being hit by a car, a reporter goes to the hospital to interview the actress. She then tells the reporter that her wealthy fiance, who was killed in an accident several years before, was actually murdered. Before long the reporter finds herself in a web of corruption, mental illness and murder.
bee
Shadow of a Woman
Title: Shadow of a Woman
Character: Dr. Eric Ryder
Released: September 14, 1946
Type: Movie
Brooke's marital life with Eric takes a downturn when she starts suspecting that her husband is starving his son from a prior marriage to death in order to claim his inheritance.
bee
Escape in the Desert
Title: Escape in the Desert
Character: Capt. Becker
Released: May 1, 1945
Type: Movie
Escaped Nazi POWs hold the denizens of a California resort hostage.
bee
Hotel Berlin
Title: Hotel Berlin
Character: Martin Richter
Released: March 2, 1945
Type: Movie
An assortment of diverse characters gather at the Hotel Berlin in World War II Germany as the Third Reich falls.
bee
Hollywood Canteen
Title: Hollywood Canteen
Character: Self
Released: December 15, 1944
Type: Movie
Two soldiers on leave spend three nights at a club offering free of charge food, dancing, and entertainment for servicemen on their way overseas. Club founders Bette Davis and John Garfield give talks on the history of the place.
bee
Passage to Marseille
Title: Passage to Marseille
Character: Garou
Released: March 11, 1944
Type: Movie
A freedom-loving French journalist sacrifices his happiness and security to battle Nazi tyranny.
bee
Northern Pursuit
Title: Northern Pursuit
Character: Colonel Hugo von Keller
Released: November 7, 1943
Type: Movie
Canadian Mountie Steve Wagner captures a German Luftwaffe officer on a spy mission, who later escapes from the prison camp. To catch the spy ring, the Mounties employ a ruse so that the spies, believing Steve to be sympathetic, enlist him in their plans.
bee
Watch on the Rhine
Title: Watch on the Rhine
Character: Young Man
Released: August 27, 1943
Type: Movie
On the eve of World War II, the German Kurt Müller, his American-born wife Sara, and their three children, having lived in Europe for years, visit Sara's wealthy mother near Washington, DC. Kurt secretly works for the anti-Nazi resistance. A visiting Romanian count, becoming aware of this, seeks to blackmail him.
bee
Mission to Moscow
Title: Mission to Moscow
Character: Maj. Kamenev
Released: April 29, 1943
Type: Movie
Ambassador Joseph Davies is sent by FDR to Russia to learn about the Soviet system and returns to America as an advocate of Stalinism.
bee
Edge of Darkness
Title: Edge of Darkness
Character: Captain Koenig
Released: April 9, 1943
Type: Movie
The film pivots around the local Norwegian doctor and his family. The doctor's wife (Ruth Gordon) wants to hold on to the pretence of gracious living and ignore their German occupiers. The doctor, Martin Stensgard (Walter Huston), would also prefer to stay neutral, but is torn. His brother-in-law, the wealthy owner of the local fish cannery, collaborates with the Nazis. The doctor's daughter, Karen (Ann Sheridan), is involved with the resistance and with its leader Gunnar Brogge (Errol Flynn). The doctor's son has just returned to town, having been sent down from the university, and is soon influenced by his Nazi-sympathizer uncle. Captain Koenig (Helmut Dantine), the young German commandant of the occupying garrison, whose fanatic determination to do everything by the book and spoutings about the invincibility of the Reich hides a growing fear of a local uprising.
bee
Casablanca
Title: Casablanca
Character: Jan Brandel (uncredited)
Released: January 15, 1943
Type: Movie
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
bee
The Pied Piper
Title: The Pied Piper
Character: Aide
Released: August 21, 1942
Type: Movie
Englishman Mr. Howard is on a fishing holiday in eastern France when the Germans invade in 1940. Setting off to try and get back home he is persuaded to take along the two Cavanaugh children, and as his journey progresses his family keeps growing in size. Once in German-occupied northern France a new problem arises — the risk of being heard speaking English.
bee
Mrs. Miniver
Title: Mrs. Miniver
Character: German Flyer
Released: July 3, 1942
Type: Movie
Middle-class housewife Kay Miniver deals with petty problems. She and her husband Clem watch her Oxford-educated son Vin court Carol Beldon, the charming granddaughter of the local nobility as represented by Lady Beldon. Then the war comes and Vin joins the RAF.
bee
To Be or Not to Be
Title: To Be or Not to Be
Character: Co-Pilot (uncredited)
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.
bee
Escape
Title: Escape
Character: Porter (uncredited)
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.