News

Playing a villain in a movie is a great career move for an actor, but playing a real life, universally known monster like Adolf Hitler is not necessarily a decision that’s made lightly. Even in the history of countless movie Nazis, having the guts and gravitas to actually play Hitler is something else entirely. Taika Waititi, who portrays a satirical, imaginary version of Der Fuhrer inside a young boy’s mind for his latest film “Jojo Rabbit,” only got his movie made under the studio’s condition that he play the part of Hitler. But he’s not the only one who made that leap:

Anthony Hopkins – “The Bunker” (1981)

Though he’s more famous for his other villainous turn as Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins portrayed Hitler during his downfall era as the Fuhrer was hiding out in an underground bunker. “The Bunker” was a three-hour, TV movie event on CBS,...

I'm working my way through all the films about Hitler's last days. Downfall seemed set to be the definitive version, but now it's been reduced to a meme. Still, it's a largely accurate, powerful account, with a very strong performance from Bruno Ganz.In Bologna's Cinematheque I watch Pabst's The Last Act which, aided by the scorching summer weather, packed auditorium and inadequate air conditioning, really felt like spending ten days in a bunker under heavy shelling. The film introduces a fictional anti-war general played by Oscar Werner in a bit of "We're not all bad" special pleading but it gets a lot right.Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) is notorious for getting a lot wrong: not facts, which are scrupulously attested to and signed off on right at the start by a historian and an actual witness, but the filmmaking and the casting. I don't know who you ought...

Den Of Geek Dec 2, 2016

Fawlty Towers legend Andrew Sachs has passed away at the age of 86.

We've got some very sad news to share this morning: Andrew Sachs has passed away. The actor, best known for playing Manuel in Fawlty Towers, died on the 23rd of November and his funeral took place yesterday, Thursday the 1st of December. He had been battling dementia since 2012. 

The tributes have been quick to pour in, with John Cleese taking to Twitter to say, "Just heard about Andy Sachs. Very sad." He described his Fawlty Towers co-star as "A very sweet, gentle and kind man and a truly great farceur." 

"I could not have found a better Manuel. Inspired", Cleese added. Indeed, the Spanish waiter who Sachs played opposite Cleese will go down in history as one of TV's best-loved comedic characters. His famous lines "I know nothing", "eventually" and "que?" are still quoted regularly around the globe.

The beloved, BAFTA-nominated actor had been battling dementia for four years.

British actor Andrew Sachs, famous for playing the hapless Spanish waiter Manuel in Fawlty Towers, has died aged 86.

He passed away last week in a nursing home according to his wife Melody Sachs. The actor had been battling dementia since 2012.

Sachs became a household name – and earned a BAFTA nomination - after playing Manuel in the John Cleese-fronted sitcom Fawlty Towers, which ran for just 12 episodes between 1975-1979. It is now considered one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time.

Sachs also appeared in numerous films, TV programs and radio shows during his 60-year career, including; Coronation Street, Hitler: The Last Ten Days, the Are You Being Served? movie, Revenge Of The Pink Panther, Quartet and as the narrator in the BAFTA-winning Troubleshooter.

His wife said: “My heart has been broken every day for a long time. I never once...

This week on Off The Shelf, Ryan is joined by Brian Saur to take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for the week of September 22nd, 2015, and chat about some follow-up and home video news.

Subscribe in iTunes or RSS.

Episode Links & Notes Follow-up December Criterion Announcements Thunderbean Update News Warner Archive: Twice Upon A Time on September 29th Arrow USA: What Have You Done To Solange? Masters Of Cinema: Day Of The Outlaw, December 7th Sony: Better Call Saul / You Can’t Take It With You Kino Lorber Studio Classics: The Black Sleep / Donovan’s Brain Vinegar Syndrome Dilemma Oscilloscope’s new web store New Releases The American Dreamer Arrow: Season 3 Beginning Or The End Black Caesar Breaker Morant Busting Destructors Deuces Wild Dirty Work Doctor Who: Dark Water/Death in Heaven 3D Dog Day Afternoon 40th Anniversary Fatal Instinct Flash: Season 1 For Us the...

Stage and screen actor known for his roles in The Three Musketeers and Young Winston

In 1971 the actor Simon Ward, who has died after a long illness aged 70, was plucked from virtual obscurity by the director Richard Attenborough to play Winston Churchill in the film Young Winston, supported by actors of longstanding reputation including Robert Shaw, Anne Bancroft and John Mills. After the film's release a year later, Ward found himself a star on several continents. "That was a frightening role," he recalled. "You were playing someone whom everyone had very strong feelings about. As a movie, it had the most extraordinary mixture of adventure – the fighting, riding, running up and down mountains – and some wonderful dialogue scenes shot at Shepperton."

Swashbuckling and tongue-in-cheek slapstick were added to the mix when Ward, known for his aristocratic looks and high cheekbones, was cast as the Duke of Buckingham in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers...

Rada-trained star of Zulu Dawn, Young Winston and Supergirl was 'one of the most admired actors of his generation'

The actor Simon Ward, who played the title role of Winston Churchill in 1972's Young Winston, has died after a long illness. He was 70.

The star of both stage and screen died "peacefully" on Friday, with his wife Alexandra and three daughters at his side.

Ward appeared as Sir Monty in the BBC legal drama Judge John Deed and as Bishop Gardiner in The Tudors. He also had roles on the big screen in Zulu Dawn and Young Winston.

A statement from Ward's agents, Shepherd Management, said: "The son of a car salesman from Beckenham, Kent, Ward wanted to be an actor from an early age and joined the National Youth Theatre at the age of 13 and stayed there for eight years.

"Ward went on to train at Rada and became...

Diane Cilento, a tall, voluptuous, sometimes blonde/sometimes brunette beauty best remembered for her Academy Award-nominated performance in the 1963 Oscar winner Tom Jones, died in Cairns, in the north of Queensland, according to an online report in the Australian publication The Newsport/Port Douglas Daily. The report says Cilento was 81; as per the IMDb, she had turned 78 yesterday. The cause of death, "after a long battle with illness," hasn't been disclosed. Born to a family of doctors on Oct. 5, 1933, in Brisbane, Queensland, Cilento began her film career in British and British-set Hollywood productions of the early 1950s. By mid-decade, Cilento was already getting cast in leads and semi-leads, in mid-level fare such as Roy Ward Baker's Passage Home (1955), opposite Anthony Steel and Peter Finch, and Alan Bromly's The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp (1956), in the title role as an angel who, in order to fulfill her mission on Earth,...

Dear Friend Hitler, thought to be Indian cinema's first portrayal of the Nazi dictator, is set in the last days of the Third Reich

He is a stalwart of Indian cinema who once played Gandhi on the small screen, while she is a former Miss India best known for her romantic comedy roles. Together, Anupam Kher and Neha Dhupia are to play Adolf Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun in a new Bollywood film set in the last days of the Third Reich.

According to reports, the curiously titled Dear Friend Hitler will centre on the relationships between the Nazi dictator and those who were close to him, including Braun, his long-term lover who he married in his final days in the Berlin bunker. "It aims to take the viewer into close quarters with the enigmatic personality that Hitler was and give a glimpse into his insecurities, his charisma, his paranoia and his sheer genius,...

Italian screenwriter Ennio De Concini has died at the age of 84.

De Concini, who won an Academy Award in 1962 for his film Divorce - Italian Style, passed away on 17 November.

In addition to the comedy, for which he won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, De Concini also worked on films including The Cry, European Nights and Black Sunday.

He also directed films including 1973's Hitler: The Last Ten Days, one of his best-known works, and enjoyed success as a television writer later in his career.