8mm

Living in the present day has a lot of advantages that people only a few decades ago had not! Can you imagine living in a world that has no computers, no internet, no HD- or 3D-television, no DVD's, no cell phones,.... hardly I guess! Everybody is so used to this that it would be very hard to go back to that time! Living in present day times is for genre fans like living in genre heaven! Everything what makes a genre fan's heart skip a beat is today available only a klick away! Instant gratification!

At the end of the 60's and in 70's it was another story. If you where a genre fan there were not that many venues to cater your hobby. You went to the movies, bought movie magazines, went to conventions if you were lucky enough to live close enough to city that held these conventions or bought the records with the original soundtracks of all the movies that you loved so much. Through the music you could recreate the movie in your mind. And that was probably it! So die hard fans were looking for a means to see a movie again and again when recreating in their minds was not enough anymore! Enter 8mm movies!

Developed by Kodak Eastman during the early 1930's in America, 8mm became the home movie standard format for the home movies market. In the decades after the launch of the 8mm format it was mainly used to film home activities like weddings, birthday's, parties.... or the killing of J.F. Kennedy in Dallas, filmed by a man named "Zapruder" with his 8mm camera. During the 70's the demand by genre fans to have a copy of a favorite movie grew more and more. The idea that people would never see a movie again when they had seen it was replaced by the wish to be able to build a movie library of favorite movies. So in those pre-video days the 8mm movies appeared on the market for fans that could be projected at home on a screen or white wall with the same projector that was used to project the home made movies.

All the genres that are today still popular were also popular in those days but the number of movies offered where very limited to the blockbusters of those days! Another problem was that you could not buy these movies very easily. It was often a real adventure to get them. You could order them through the mail on the basis of ads in trade papers or movie magazines or you needed to travel to the nearest town to buy them at the local photographer's store or in a shopping mall. And then it was not guaranteed that you could buy all the parts of a movie to have a complete set. For a genre fan it was a lot of hassle to have a certain movie! Another disadvantage was the fact that those movies were limited in footage to around 20 or 30 minutes for each part so you had a heavily cut movie. In the end the 8mm movies became not very popular and stayed in a niche of movie fandom and almost completely disappeard with the rise of the video format at the end of the 70's and the beginning of the 80's.

For Marisa Mell fans there are almost no 8mm movies in existence. The illustration with this entry comes from a 8mm Spanish copy of the Umberto Lenzi movie "Milano Rovente". I know of an 8mm copy of the German movie "Der Brave Soldat Schwejk" and that is it! Fortunately it became much better with the video craze and nowadays with DVD's and the internet you can have almost a complete series of Marisa Mell movies at your disposal!

The Dutchess

Augen wie eine Sphinx

MARISA MELL

Diese Frau ist wie für den Film geschaffen. Selbst wenn sie überhaupt keine schauspielerisches Talent besässe, hätte sie das Zeug zum grossen Star, denn ihre blosse Erscheinung fasziniert. Ideal Ihre Masse, katzenhaft elegant ihre Bewegungen,wunderschön und voller Rätsel ihr Gesicht. Aber diese Marisa Mell, die aussieht wie ein Männermordernder Vamp, wie ein moderne Version der “Lulu” oder des “Blauen Engels”, hat ihre Sphinx-Augen auf höchst bürgerliche Lebensziele ausgerichtet: Sie is seit einiger Zeit mit einem Kaufmann verlobt, möchte bald heiraten und Kinder haben. Ihre Karriere bedeutet keineswegs alles, aber dennoch hat sie ihren Beruf nie auf die leichte Schulter genommen. Marisa, am 25 februar 1939 in Neumarkt (Steiermark) als Marlies Moitzi geboren und in Graz aufgewachsen, erlernte die hohe Kunst des Schauspiels am renommierten Wiener Reinhardt-Seminar. Susi Nicoletti und Fred Liewehr waren ihre Lehrer. Direkt im Anschluss an ihr driejähriges Schauspielstudium erhielt sie ihr erstes Filmangebot für “Im Nachtlokal zum Silbermond”. Danach gab ihr der junge Regisseur Edwin Zbonek die schöne Chance, in dem anspruchvollen Film “Am Galgen hängt die Liebe” mitzuwirken, der weit besser war als sein Titel und mehrfach preisgekrönt wurde. Die Filme “Wegen Verführung Minderjähriger”, “Der Brave Soldat Swejk”, “Lebensborn”, “Ruf der Wildgänse” und “Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee” schlossen sich an. Marisas eigentlicher Durchbruch abert erfolgte in dem umschritten Rolf-Thiele-Opus “Venusberg”. Es steht allerdings zu befürchten, dass die Rolle der morbiden und liebestollen Frau, die sie darin verkörperte, sie auf eine ganze Weile in ihrem Filmfach festlegen wird. Allerdings ist Marisa intelligent genug, sich dem Film nicht mit Haut und Haaren zu verschreiben. Als sie neben Heinz Rühmann ein kleine aber attractive Rolle im “Braven Soldaten Swejk” spielte, sagte sie zu einem Reporter:”Ich glaube nicht, das das zufällige hineinrutschen in die Filmbranche mir ein paar kleinen oder grosseren Rollen auf Grund eines zufällig fotogenen Gesichts mir die Erfüllung dessen bringen kann was ich von meinem Beruf erwarte. Ich möchte mich auf der Bühne freischwimmen.”
Marisa Mell ist unter der Anschrift c/o Agentur Jovanovich, München 22, Widenmayerstrasse 23, zu erreichen.

Bin Ich Nicht Fesch?

After filming her first movie as an adult "Das Nachtlokal zum Silbermond" (1959), Marisa Mell played a part of "Olly" in the German movie "Der Brave Soldat Schwejk" (1960) with German cult star "Heinz Rühmann" as the title character Soldier Schwejk. An other cult star in this movie was Austrian born actress "Senta Berger" as Gretl. Both actresses got to know each other during their theatre school years as students at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, Austria and remained friends during the entire life of Marisa Mell. In this movie, Senta Berger got a film credit and Marisa Mell did not. Why she did not got any credit for her part in two little scenes is not known, fact is that Marisa Mell consciously forgot that she ever played a part in this movie. Due to her small part, there are not many different photo's of Marisa Mell as Olly. Some photo's show her together with co-star Heinz Rühmann. This photo shows Marisa Mell on the stairs on her way to the apartment of her secret lover Oberleutnant Lukas, played by another icon of German movies Ernst Stankovski, who is still active as an actor at the age of 81 and having more than 118 movies and TV-parts on his credit.

Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein!

„Die tolldreisten Abenteuer und auserlesensten Kochrezepte des Geheimagenten wider Willen Thomas Lieven.“ (The most daring adventures and most selected recepies of secret agent against his will Thomas Lieven.) This was the first sentence of a the German book called "Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein" (It must not always be caviar!) written by Austrian bestseller author Johannes Mario Simmel in 1960.

The book tells the adventures of a bank teller Thomas Lieven during World War II and the tricks he uses to stay out of the clutches of the different secret services on both sides of the front. His motto was: "I would like to live in peace, have a good meal and adore beautiful women!". A good meal for him was Boeuf Stroganoff and beautiful women he got plenty during the course of the war in the book but living in peace was not going to happen untill the end of the war!

The book was a huge success in German speaking countries with many translations in other languages. The success was mostly thanks to the tongue in cheek approach of the World War II story in the same vein as the World War I story of "Der Brave Soldat Sjweik". And with almost each successfull book or play soon after it's publication it would be made into a film or a television series. Already in 1961 the movie was filmed in two parts "Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein!" and "Diesmal muss es Kaviar sein!" (This time it must be caviar!) with O.W. Fisher as Thomas Lieven and other female movie stars like Eva Bartok (famous for her role in Mario Bava's "Blood and Black Lace") as Vera and Senta Berger (famous for her role in a "Man from U.N.C.L.E-episode and film and a part in the movie "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse) as Chantal. The movies were not very faithfull adaptations of the book but are now quite fun to see not only for the story which is rather amusing but also for the high Euro-cult connections with all the former stars from that era!

In 1977 the second German state television "Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen" (ZDF), in a coproduction with film production company "CCC Television" found it time to make a 13 part television series from the book for her evening programming. The part of Thomas Lieven would now be played by German television actor Siegfried Rauch and Marisa Mell as his love intrest Chantal, member of the French resistance against the German occupation of France. The series was filmed in 1976 at the Berlin Union Film studios. The series ran from wednesday May 11th until wednesday October 19th 1977. Marisa Mell plays in the parts 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of the series. Because the hero of the series loves to cook the producers found nothing better than to close each episode with a recepy made by Siegfried Rauch. Although it had great production values the series was in the beginning not quite a complete success but during the course of its run the German audience opened their hearts to it and in the end embraced it. Even the recepies of the series were collected into a cook book, which became a bestseller. Today the series is regarded as one of the great high lights of German television in the 70's. In 1984 the ZDF did a re-run of the series with even more success because the audience now understood the tongue in cheek approach of the series and the book.

And with a lot of good stuff, the best comes at the end! In this case, ZDF in coproduction with Studio Hamburg are releasing a series of DVD's called "Strassenfeger" with all the best krimi's from the 60's and 70's. "Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein" is number 09 in the series! Street date was December 5th 2008. It is the first time ever that this series with Marisa Mell appeares on DVD in high definition quality. It is in German only but... it has Marisa Mell's own voice on it with her Austrian accent! So no horrible dubbing! This alone is a reason for owning the DVD because most of Marisa Mell's movies have been dubbed! The DVD is region "2" coded so you need to have a universal DVD player but now everyone else in the world, besides the Germans, can see this series and see Marisa Mell in another incarnation than the roles she played in the movies.

Early rare photo on German magazine cover "Deutscher Hausfreund Illustrierte" (1960)

Today's entry is a German magazine called "Deutscher Hausfreund Illustrierte" with a very young looking 21 year old Marisa Mell on the cover. Before seeing this rare photo cover I had never heard of this magazine and a search on the internet does not give any more answers. The only thing I could find is the fusion with another magazine for women called "Für Sie" in 1964. The title got dropped in favour of the "Für Sie" title in its logo. The magazine "Für Sie" still exists to this day in Germany and has a healty print run in a crowed magazine market.

This cover is from 1960 and Marisa Mell, fresh from theater school, is starting her career in German talking movies. After the film "Das Nachtlokal zum Silbermond" she got a part in the movie "Der Brave Soldat Schwejk" with Heinz Rühmann as the main character soldier Schwejk where this photo is taken from. Marisa Mell is called "Olly" in the movie. She plays a mistress to a lieutenant in the Austrian-Hungarian army during World War I. She had only a couple of little scenes what today is being called "cameos". In the end titles she isn't even credited. Although she is wearing a student cap in this photo, it does not appear in the movie as such on her character. There are some scenes with students in the film so she probably took the cap just for the photo shoot because it looked funny. What makes this photo so special is that it is from a period when Marisa Mell had no international experience and was in fact a struggling starlet in Vienna (Austria). There aren't that many photos of her from that period. Once she was established as an international movie star things changed and you could find her on a lot of magazine covers. The film was being shot in Vienna and this was probably the reason why she got the part as a fresh new face next to the lieutenant. Nevertheless it was for her a big step forward in her career because she had not a simple walk on walk off role, no, her scenes were with two of the most popular actors at time in German speaking countries: Heinz Rühmann and Ernst Stankvoski, who is, by the way, still working at age 80. Personally I think that she was very happy with this role because it signaled to her that her career was slowly starting to take off!