"Marisa Mell" by German Nazi photographer Arthur Grimm

In the early 60's Marisa Mell was a struggling starlet from Austria trying to break into the movie business, first in her native home country, then in Germany! It was during that time that she needed to get her name and face known to all the right people in the hope of landing a part in a next movie production. Contrary to the present days, actors and actresses often did not have an agent or a manager to land parts in movies, but had to do all the hard work themselves by going to the right parties, meeting the right people and mingling in the right circles, hence the casting couch! For Marisa Mell it was no different because beautiful women wanting to break into the movie bussiness were plenty like Karen Dor, Senta Berger, Karin Baal, Ushi Glas,... and so many more. One way of making her face known was sending photo's of herself as glamorous and seductive as possible to the production offices in the hope of getting noticed. So around 1961, just after making the movie "Lebensborn", Marisa Mell came in contact with then already controversial but still power to be German photographer Arthur Grimm from Berlin. Arthur Grimm was, together with German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, a very controversial nazi artist during WWII, who made after the war his career in showbizz by photographing actors, actresses and directors in front and behind the camera for movies and television untill his death in the 1990's. What Angelo Frontini did in Italy, Arthur Grimm did in Germany.  In spite of his nazi past, Arthur Grimm was still the man to be photographed by, so Marisa Mell took the opportunity to let him take a whole series of pictures of her in the most glamorous poses for ther portfollio. Pictures that were not free of charge, but being paid from her first earnings. Did it work out for her? Probably yes, because her next movie was a German production called "Ruf der Wildgänse".

Finally! "Ruf der Wildgänse" on DVD

On April 26th 2013 one of Marisa Mell's earliest movies "Ruf der Wildgänse" will be released on DVD in Germany with a German audiotrack for the first time ever! In the past if you wanted to see this movie you had to tape the movie when it was broadcasted on a local German television station. This 1961 movie has the original running time of 91 minutes and was completely shot in Canada for exteriors, which at that time was quite an endeavor but gives the movie an authenticity that you seldom see in those kind of movies. It was an attempt to break away from the classical Heimat-movies in Germany and Austria that had stories which constantly played against the back drops of the Alpes in those countries. Secondly it has some notion of the western genre which became quite populair in the years to come in the 60's with cult television shows like Bonanza or Gunsmoke. For Marisa Mell it was a little step on the career ladder. The movie is issued in the series "Juwelen der Filmgeschichte" and is highly recommended for Marisa Mell fans who had never the possibilty in the past to see this movie outside of Germany wanting to know how Marisa Mell acted before she became a cult figure. The movie can be bought through the usual DVD-outlets.

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Thanks to André Schneider for pointing this one out! 

Ruf der Wildgänse!

In the early stages of her career Marisa Mell had not the luxury to choose the kind of parts in her movies as she wanted them to be. The main target foremost was getting a major speaking role in a movie hoping that it would be a break through success putting her name and face on the map of movie stardom! Hence the parts she played in those early years at the beginning of '60's where very different from one movie to another. So when in 1960 she was offered the part of Judith Gare in the  Austrian production "Ruf der Wildgänse" she grabed it with both hands! Although the movie was an Austrian production, it had all the characteristics of becoming a major international success! Not only was it based on the international bestseller "Wild Geese" by Canadian author Martha Ostenso with two major German speaking stars Ewald Balser as the tyranical father Caleb Gare and Heidemarie Hatheyer as the mother Amelia Gare but it was also entirely filmed on location in Canada which was never before seen for an Austrian production to do that in those years. And of course she would have a major speaking role next to the other two main characters. The movie was quite a success in Europe in 1961 when it was released but it would not yet make the name Marisa Mell a household name! For that she had to wait four more years and move to Italy, but that is another story!

These beautiful and very rarely seen lobby cards where provided by major Marisa Mell fan and collector Gerald S. from Krefeld in Germany. Thanx my friend!

"Who am I?" (Can you solve this mystery?)

Last night I saw for the first time the Austrian 1961 production "Der Ruf der Wildgänse" based on the then famous book by Martha Ostenso.

It tells the story of an immigrant family living in the outback in Canada at the beginning of the 20th century. The father rules his family and the nearby trading post with iron hand untill disaster strikes. Marisa Mell, in her early twenties, played the eldest daughter "Judith" having enough of the tyrany of her father. It's what the German's call a "Heimat"-movie. The exterior scenes were completely shot in Canada which at that time was very expensive to do and an absolute rarity for an Austrian movie production to fly all the way to the other side of the world to shoot on location. The interior scenes were shot in Vienna on a sound stage! The cast was made up by mainly Austrian and some German actors and actresses like Horst Janson, Gertraud Jesserer and...Hans H. Neubert.

Wenn you follow the career of Marisa Mell you come across a lot of known names of Eurocult stars in her filmography like John Phillip Law, Adolpho Celi, Robert Hossein, Jean Marais, Ursula Andress, Virna Lisi, Claudine Auger, Ushi Glass, Bruno Cremer, Antonio Sabbatto sr.... the list goes on and on... but then... you stumble across a name that you have never heard off: "Hans H. Neubert". Who???

Thankfully in this day and age you have the internet as a never ending source of information on everything that your heart desires. So a quick check on IMDB, Wikipedia and some specialised cult movie sites will give you a quick answer who this guy is, where he comes from and what he has done in his life at that point in time to gain a place in a movie with Marisa Mell. Mmmmm! Strange! There is not much to be found about this actor! Only IMDB gives him about 8 acting roles where 4 of them are roles in television movies and 4 are roles in cinema movies that hardly anybody remembers to this day. Of them all the best known film is a 1961 French western directed by Robert Hossein called "Le Goût de la Violence" with Robert Hossein and Mario Adorf in the main parts. For the rest there is not much else to be found about him. No date of birth or death, no reasons why he stopped filming around 1967, no mentioning what he did after his film career or what he is doing now! This actor is to me a complete mystery.

CAN YOU SOLVE THIS MYSTERY???