Alfred Balthoff Movies List

A music comedy directed by Dietrich Haugk based on the play by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.

Shortly after WWII, the DEFA Studios produced a series of operas and operettas which belonged to the classical German musical heritage. This enchanting film, the very first opera production of DEFA, stands out because of its lavish decor and costumes, its outstanding actors and their masterful voices of that time.

After a line of mischief Philip Gale, an American sailor, is lured into hiring on the "Yorikke", a tramp cargo, by Lawski, a stoker from Poland. Still, the two become friends within the motley crew of losers from all nations. Gale and his new companion soon are more than disillusioned: the "Yorikke" is far from seaworthy and more of a coffin than a ship, work is close to slavery, and treatment by the officers and their subalterns is harsh and cynical. One day they make an alarming discovery in a tin of plum butter they have procured from the ship's cargo... Written by Anonymous

A story about a family after the Second World War. The petty bourgeois cashier Karl Weber of Berlin observes from a distance how his son Ernst participates in the building of a new socialist society. Karl does not understand Ernst's visions, instead he confides in his other son Harry. However, Harry becomes involved in illicit business and Karl quickly realizes that it would be best to join his son Ernst in the citizen-owned factory.

Dorothea Angermann the daughter of a clergyman is accused of the murder of her husband, a brutal man that she was obliged to marry because she was pregnant and he was the father of the baby.

The Foggy Night Murderer

The film focuses on life in a World War II German penal battalion camp somewhere in Russia. The convicts include a heroic doctor unjustly convicted of avoiding military service, an officer who retreated against orders, and common criminals. It shows their life in the camp, clearing mines, living in trenches on the front line.

East Berlin, shortly after the construction of the Berlin Wall. Kurt Schröder and his family dig a tunnel to escape to West Berlin as they struggle to overcome the obstacles blocking their underground path to freedom.

Karin (Eva Bartok) is a brilliant student whose good looks give her an added advantage in assuming the role of a prostitute and exploring Berlin's thriving sex industry. Hired posthaste by nefarious Madame Clavius, the pretty blonde sets about gathering information for her thesis when she discovers that her old friend Madeline has been financing her luxurious lifestyle by working as a call girl in the very same brothel. The situation turns sinister when Madeline reveals to Karin that she has fallen in love and longs to start a new life, but any girl who tries to leave Madame Clavius soon turns up dead. When Madeline admits to considering suicide, Karin hatches a plan for both of them to make a clean break from the brothel and avoid Madame Clavius' deadly wrath.

While an anatomy seminar prepares to examine the cadaver of Franz Wozzeck in the name of scientific progress, medical student Büchner excoriates humanity for having allowed Wozzeck’s fate. The tragic story unfolds in flashbacks, as Büchner narrates.