Berlin Film Festspiele 1962

Although Marisa Mell was during the height of her career a very public figure in the Italian and Spanish yellow press seeing film footage of her is a rather difficult find. So it is always a treat to see her in a clip during one of her public appearences. And when that clip is even from the beginning of her career in Germany during the early years of the 60's then it is really an one of kind Marisa Mell extravaganza for every fan! 

In the movie world there are only three major movie festivals that have importance for every actor, actress, director and producer. The Academy Awards, The Cannes Film Festival and of course the Berlin Film Festspiele. In the summer of 1962, from June 22nd until July 3rd, Berlin was once again host of this festival. 

This edition would be very special. Only the previous year the East-German government decided to build a wall in Berlin to seperate East-Berlin under Russian influence from West-Berlin under American influence. That was a major shock for the people living in the city. So the focus of this edition was entirely on the cold war situation that was graduately building up between the then two major world powers. 

The city of Berlin became an island in a hostile ocean called East-Germany. From then on everything had to be transported by plane. Film actors and actresses were flown in from all over Germany and Austria or special guests from America like James Stewart

or the in Germany at that moment very popular actor Tony Curtis

who was madly in love with then only 17 year old German actress Christine Kaufmann. They would play together in the movie "Taras Bulba" in the same year and get married the next year! Their marriage would last 4 years and have two daughters. Kristine Kaufman is still very active in Germany as an movie and television actress but also as a teleshopping seller for her own cosmetic line being very successfull making her a very rich women! Marisa Mell would play together with Tony Curtis many years later in the comedy "Casanova".

So everybody who was somebody in the movie business during the early 60's was present in those summer months like Maria Schell, who had already an impressive filmography, but would gain world recognition in 1978 as Vond-Ah the mother of Christopher Reeve's Superman.

 

Hans Sönker was another very famous German actor present at the Berlin Film Festspiele. He played opposite Marisa Mell in 1960 in the German movie "Wegen Verführung Minderjärigen". At that time it was a shocking movie about a high school teacher falling in love with his female under age student while being married.

As a starlet age 23 making her first impressions in the German movie business she could not be absent from this major event. What makes this picture so special is the way Marisa Mell is dressed. The early sixties are still under the major influence of the glamorous 50's. So people, when going to a gala, dressed to the hilt, men in a traditional tuxedo and women in furs and long expensive evening gowns. As seen on this picture Marisa Mell is no exception wearing a white fur, long earrings and having her brown hair done in a very special style that she would never do again in future years. Being a struggling actress this event must have cost her quite some money to attend but it was a much needed investment for the future of her career. Once she moved to sunny Italy a few years later this way of dressing up would become a relict of the past for Marisa Mell. She would never dress up like that ever again no matter what the occassion might be.

Thanks once again to Marisa Mell archeologist André Schneider for digging up this gem!

"Bitte zu Tisch"

 

On Sunday March 18th 1977 the Austrian state television ORF broadcasted a culinary programme called "Bitte zu Tisch" presented by the singer-actress-presenter Helga Papouschek. The aim of the programme was to invite guests from showbusiness and culture in general from the German speaking coutries in Europe to talk about their projects, present and past, while eating the meals that they had cooked previously in the studio kitchen. Being state television in 1977 the show was very, and I mean very, formal in its execution. Even the British could not have made a programme more upper stiff lipped than this programme. Starting from the old fashioned title card, even for that time, my god we are in the hip 70's, the producer used as back ground of a menu dating back to 1887 over the very formal talking presenter who hardly dared to move to the very formal cooking of the recipes! Gordon Ramsey or Jamie Oliver are decades away. If they used talking dummies nobody would have noticed it!

Luckily for Helga Papouschek this programme is only a blip on her resumé as a presenter. In later years after the year 2000 she became quite famous in her career as opera and operette singer in Vienna, Austria and the German speaking countries untill this day she is highly respected for her krafts. She has probably forgotten all about this show and that is fine, so would I if I had presented it like she had.

On this March 18th 1977 show Helga Papouschek had as guest next to Marisa Mell the German devil do all actor-singer-composer Freddy Quinn. Freddy Quinn has a career spanning almost 55 years and is still highly respected in Germany, although in recent years after the death of his beloved wife for more than 50 years he has semi-officially retired from show business in Hamburg, Germany.

And then there is of course the one and only Marisa Mell. People who knew Marisa Mell more privately told that she was a rather good cook and knew what she was doing in the kitchen. Guests enjoyed her food very much. The presenter mentions at the beginning of the show that a previous guest another famous Austrian actor Werner Pochath called a recipe "Scampis Marisa" which of course flattered Marisa Mell hearing this that a recipe was called after her.

The show meanders on from one guest to the other and back not very well structured but still very formal. Freddy Quinn is in his element almost kicking on the formality of the show, but Marisa Mell is at moments very uneasy and tries to fit in but hardly succeeds. Untill she gives up and starts adopting also the eating formality by being over polite at the table in trying to eat with chop sticks what has been cooked by Freddy Quinn a chinese dish called "Tan Guan", whatever that may mean! Never heard of it!

Then it is time for Marisa Mell to go to the kitchen and cook her recipe. It is called "Heidensterz" a recipe from the part of Germany called Schlesien or Austria called Steiermark. At the end of the entry you find the German version of this recipe. Please do not ask to translate this recipe into English! Hit it, Marisa!

And then it is back to the table babbling about the careers of both guests! Who could top the other in having the interesting show career: Freddy Quinn or Marisa Mell??? Let's hear what Marisa Mell has to say about that! 

We learn from Marisa Mell that she was in the muscial Mata Hari on Broadway for 6 months performing 8 times a week. It was a hell of job but Freddy Quinn said with a lot of knowledge that "she was now a Broadway star, the highest regard that an actress could achieve in the US". Unfortunately this was complete nonsenses from Marisa Mell  and Freddy Quinn because a) the show never did get to Broadway but was tanked in Washington DC after one performance being that bad and b) untill this day being an Oscar winner is still the heighest acclaim an actress can achieve, maybe equiled by a Tony Award for theatre performances! Luckily the internet did not exist at that time otherwise the presenter would have blown this away as a clear lie!

 

And then suddenly the show becomes really interesting for Marisa Mell completists. She tells the presenter that she loved making "Danger: Diabolik!", has never seen it since the première of the movie, and is one of her favorite movies to this date. The programme was taped around the 20th of February 1977 because Marsia Mell mentions that her latest movie "Casanova & C°" with Tony Curtis will have its world première in Vienna, Austria, on February 25th 1977, one day after her birthday! And for me unkown information untill now was the mention that Marisa Mell was planning on starting her next film in the summer of 1977 a movie with Anthony Quinn in Arabia, did she mean Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Filming would take almost up to a year. The project never came into existence for Marisa Mell. Anthony Quinn did make a movie in 1977 called "The Message" filmed in Arabia. How, and more importantly, if Marisa Mell was really connected to this movie, is unkown. Maybe she heard this through the grape vine in Rome that Anthony Quinn was going to shoot this movie and needed an excuse for the show to show that she was still in demand by producers to star in movies with other older Hollywood stars? Who knows??? Fact is that the career of Marisa Mell was already in decline in rappid tempo. Her next project would be the Helmut Berger starrer "La Belva col Mitra", famous now for her brutal rape scene and then there were some TV-projects. So no big Hollywood or other movie projects! Reality check for the once highly demanded star! What is also a dead give away that Marisa Mell was not very rich anymore is the way she dressed for this show in a plain red pullover and dark vest. Nothing glamours here or Italian high fashion that she once wore with great class at the beginning of the 70's, only 7 years previous but probably an eternity for Marisa Mell.

Marisa Mell lost in thought after the taping of the show: "God am I glad that this torture is over! If I forgot why I escaped to sunny cheerfull Rome, Italy, now I do remember why! Never ever again!"

/

As alway a big thank you to André Schneider for pointing out the existence of this programme with Marisa Mell. Thanks Buddy!

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If you like to cook the recipe that Marisa Mell made in this programme this is the German version of it:

Zubereitung für Heidensterz (Buchweizenmehlsterz)

Mann schüttet ½ Pfund Buchweizenmehl in 1 ½ l kochendes Salzwasser, deckt den Topf zu und läßt es etwa 10 Minuten an der Seite des Feuers kochen. Dann löst man das Mehl vom Rande des Kochtopfes ab und dreht den ganzen Mehlkloß mit dem Kochlöffel um, dass die Unterste nach oben kommt; nun lässt man es noch 10 Minuten kochen, gießt dann einen Teil des Wassers ab und zerrührt den großen Kloß zu Brocken, die man noch eine ¼ Stunde zugedeckt an einer heißen Stelle ziehen lässt.

Danach zerreißt man den Sterz mit einer großen Bratengabel, richtet ihn auf einer Schüssel bergartig an und gießt braue Butter oder gebratenen Speck kochend darüber. Es geht aber auch aus Weizenmehl oder Grieß, oder mit Pilz - oder Schwammsuppe.

Tony Curtis dies at age 85!

On September 29th 2010, one of Hollywood's last living legends Tony Curtis died at his Las Vegas home from a cardiac arrest at age 85. Tony Curtis shaped himself from a 1950s movie heartthrob into a respected actor, showing a determined streak that served him well in such films as "Sweet Smell of Success," "The Defiant Ones" and the mega hit "Some Like It Hot" with Marilyn Monroe. Curtis began in acting with frivolous movies that exploited his handsome physique and appealing personality, but then steadily moved to more substantial roles, starting in 1957 in the harrowing show business tale "Sweet Smell of Success." In 1958, "The Defiant Ones" brought him an Academy Award nomination as best actor for his portrayal of a white racist who escaped from prison handcuffed to a black man, Sidney Poitier. The following year, he donned women's clothing and sparred with Marilyn Monroe in one of the most acclaimed film comedies ever, Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot." His first wife was actress Janet Leigh of "Psycho" fame; actress Jamie Lee Curtis is their daughter. "My father leaves behind a legacy of great performances in movies and in his paintings and assemblages," Jamie Lee Curtis said in a statement today. "He leaves behind children and their families who loved him and respected him and a wife and in-laws who were devoted to him. He also leaves behind fans all over the world." Curtis struggled against drug and alcohol abuse as starring roles became fewer, but then bounced back in film and television as a character actor. His brash optimism returned, and he allowed his once-shiny black hair to turn silver. Again he came back after even those opportunities began to wane, reinventing himself as a writer and painter whose canvasses sold for as much as $20,000. "I'm not ready to settle down like an elderly Jewish gentleman, sitting on a bench and leaning on a cane," he said at 60. "I've got a helluva lot of living to do." And that he did. (A.P.)
For fans of Marisa Mell, he will be mainly remembered as the "other" Casanova in the movie "Casanova & C°" from 1977 with a bunch of Eurocult actresses like Marisa Berenson, Sylva Koscina, Andrea Ferreol, Britt Ekland and... Marisa Mell as the Dutchess of Cornaro. The movie is an erotic comedy film with many... many titles: Casanova & Company (Italy), Casanova - sänkykamarivaras (Finland), Enas trellos, poly trellos Kazanovas (Greece), Hilfe, ich bin eine männliche Jungfrau (West Germany), Sex on the Run (USA) (reissue title), Some Like It Cool (USA), The Amorous Mis-Adventures of Casanova (USA) (video title), The Rise and Rise of Casanova (UK), and Treize femmes pour Casanova (France)). The plot revolves around the adventures of Giacomo Casanova with various women, and a visit to the Republic of Venice by an Ottoman delegation, including a Sultana and her retinue. To me he will always be remembered as the partner of Roger Moore in the British series "The Persuaders" from the early 70's.