The best Ewald Balser’s movies

Biopic about Ludwig van Beethoven.

Everyman (German: Jedermann) is a 1961 Austrian drama film directed by Gottfried Reinhardt, based on the play written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The film was selected as the Austrian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 34th Academy Awards, but was not nominated.

In 1882 a country girl disappears from a small Hungarian village. The inhabitants suggest that she was murdered by the Jews. Everything is done to accuse them before the trial. A study in stubbornness, racism and intolerance and how to fight against it.

About the power of love and that love is such a strong force that humans are willing to commit the most ruthless acts to achieve it. And the one who loses in the game of love, can die as a result of it. This is how love is, according to "Furioso".

Oberst Alfred Redl heads the military intelligence department of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Frequent letters from the Russian Empire, however, make him suspect of sharing his knowledge with unauthorized authorities.

The Viennese seamstress Gabi Berghofer wants to marry an innkeeper. But he marries someone else. Gabi then becomes a model for a painter, who falls in love with her. She spends some wonderful time with him, but he, too, leaves Gabi to return to his family. Desperate and deserted, Gabi stands before the gravestone of the young artist Gabriele Dambrone, who took her life due to heartache. Then she decides to once more take her life in her own hands and to make her old dream of becoming an actress come true.

Already a famous painter, Rembrandt van Rijn is commissioned to paint the Amsterdam Archers' Guild. But upon completion of the picture, the men of the guild feel duped, because they don't consider themselves flatteringly depicted in the painting. They therefore decline to pay for the work. During this dispute, the painter finds out his wife is close to death. He finds himself terribly lonely after her passing and suffers from depression until he decides once more to marry.

German Paratroopers are ordered to hold the line at Monte Cassino in Italy, and halt the allied advance on Rome.

A priest falls in love with a rich man's daughter.

Laslo Benedek interrupted his thriving Hollywood career to return to Europe as director of the German Kinder, Mutter und ein General (Children, Mother and the General). The film is set in Berlin during the last days of WW II. Desperate for manpower, Hitler has ordered that all able-bodied teenaged boys --some as young as 15 -- be drafted into the army. Frau Asmussen (Hilde Krahl) is one of five mothers who learn to their horror that their boys have been slated to be cannon fodder on behalf of the Third Reich. Asmussen and the other mothers head directly to the front to plead with the German generals for the lives of their sons. Not directly an indictment of Germany's involvement in (or incitement of) the recent war, Kinder, Mutter und ein General stresses the futility and heartbreak of all wars everywhere.

Professor Hellwig is a confirmed bachelor. He is a music historian and lives only for his passion. He has no patience for the ladies and does everything he can do drive them out of his classes by being super unfriendly. Even at home, he will only let himself be served by a man -- Sebastian. Sebastian, of course, doesn't let the professor know that he's actually married. Elli Martens, a student, who has gotten to know the professor through one of his classes, wants to cure the professor of his aversion to women, because she can't stand to see someone happy (what other reason can there be?). She decides to use her womanly guile to ensnare him. Posing as a married woman, who lost her husband in an auto accident during their honeymoon, she shows up at Hellwig's house on a stormy evening, begging for help. Hellwig is repulsed and tries to get rid of her as quickly as possible (AMEN!).