Stawka wieksza niz zycie

Anyone who knows a little about Polish cinema knows that stawka collects all best supporting actors.

Emil karewicz created the best villain in decades.

I had a blast watching this series.I found it on ebay and bought a region 0 PAL boxset that was remastered. The quality of this TV show is just as good as any US TV Show I grew up watching here in the USA. I would suggest this to anyone who enjoys WW2 or spy thrillers.The opening credits and the music just draws you in and then you get a great decently acted series with cool sets and costumes.

The episodes all have decent story lines that range from 1943 - 1945.The last episode takes place after the war ends and Kloss helps to uncover the men who murdered a bunch of civilians. Check it out.You won't be let down.

This movie has been made during communist regime in Poland and therefore showed Poles as allies of Stalinist Russia. It was not true. The independent Poland performed its own secret secret operations against 3rd Reich and the Stalinist Russia did the same but not in alliance. Many best Polish stars have played, shootings were very realistic. The film was very popular in Poland, in the USSR and in... Denmark. In some cases Germans have been shown as stupid slaughters. For example, second lieutenant (Oberleutnant) Kloss has been awarded by Iron Cross by Hitler (shown from the back, however) for discovering a plot against main Nazi leaders. Wilhelm Canaris is also shown (a part of face only). The role of a SS officer Brunner (Emil Karewicz) is a masterwork.

This is one from the two best Polish series (the second call "Czterej Pancerni i Pies"). I think that J-23 (captain Klos) is good (or maybe better) as James Bond. His dialogs with Herman Bruner are excellent and many of them we used daily. And now Mr. and Mr. Kaczynski would like removed this top series from Polish TV because is to communistic and show not true story. I think that those two guys (President and Prime Minister of Poland) are not serious and recall his man (chief of Polish Television) for improve his decisions and we still can see Klos and Bruner on TV screen and heard: "Bruner nie ze mna te numery" and many others sentences.

More than Life at Stake (Stawka wieksza niz zycie) is a Polish television series about a Polish spy deep in the ranks of Abwehr (German military intelligence) during World War II. The first episode sets the stage for this 18 episode series. After the Russians capture a German spy by the name of Hans Kloss, they spend a great deal of time interrogating him about the smallest details of his life. The German spy is replaced with a Polish look-a-like named Janek (Stanislaw Mikulski), and his "escape" is staged to have several German witnesses that will confirm his identity as a German officer. Hans Kloss provides intelligence and assistance to other spies he is aligned with and, more significantly, creates an environment in which the Germans are all suspecting each other of being a traitor, thus crushing their morale.

Hans Kloss gets himself into countless sticky situations, which nearly take a miracle to untangle from. Each episode has mystery and keeps one guessing how it will turn out until the very end. Although there is no major carryover in the storyline between each episode, there are more than a number of small details that find their way into the next installments.

The entire story takes place from 1943 to 1945, and we see Germany at its height of power to its gradual fall. The part that I found especially interesting are the final days of the war, when the tables were turned and the days of the Germany's power where numbered. The fear they inspired in others is now something they had to deal with themselves. I also found it interesting that it showed some of the German officers were positioning themselves to look favorable with the Americans hoping to find a haven with them (which has been confirmed a number of times with declassified information but isn't widely known).

More than Life at Stake is a classic Polish television show that has remained popular since its creation in 1967-1968 (and probably will for many years in the future). The episodes are alternately directed by Andrzej Konic or Janusz Morgenstern. Hans Kloss is a cultural icon that is probably just as popular as Czterej pancerni i pies, which was also made in the late 1960s. Furthermore, even though Stawka wieksza niz zycie was made during the period of Soviet occupation of Poland, there is less pro-communist sentiment than Czterej pancerni i pies and even portrays the AK favorably. More than Life at Stake is an exceptional WWII serial, particularly for those who like the espionage side to the story.