Richard Oswald

Paris, France, 1784. After living many tribulations, Joseph Balsamo, known as Count Cagliostro, an infamous adventurer, enigmatic magician and necromancer, experienced physician and ruthless swordsman, triumphs among the members of the decadent French aristocracy. But a bold foretelling about a very prominent noblewoman causes his fall in disgrace… (Partially lost film.)

"Assassination" - A far-right political organization called "Fellowship Loyalty" seeks contact with an easily seducable man whom she finds in Joachim Burthe. The leader of this deeply democratizing group, the equally characterless and unscrupulous Gregor of Askanius, whispers to the fanatical student seeking guidance that it is finally time to put the death sentence on the corrupt system and its representatives.

A Nazi propaganda film made to promote anti-Semitism among the German people. Newly-shot footage of Jewish neighborhoods in recently-conquered Poland is combined with preexisting film clips and stills to defame the religion and advance Hitler's slurs that its adherents were plotting to undermine European civilization.

Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, has three adult children: Juan, who is virtuous and has a sweetheart who is a woman of the people, Lucrezia, who is virtuous and wants to marry Alfonso, and Cesare, who is wicked and lusts after Lucrezia, Juan's girlfriend, and probably others. Cesare has vowed to kill any suitor for Lucrezia's love, and he has three thugs to carry out his wishes. Bodies fall into the Tiber, into the Colosseum (with lions prowling), and onto the Vatican floors.

Posing as a wealthy Parisian, Mercadet fleeces friends and casual acquaintances alike. He is forced into this life of crime to keep up appearances, so that his daughter Julie can land herself a rich husband.

A demon, a reaper, and the ghost of a prostitute read gothic short stories and act them out.

A young woman receives an invitation from the Governor of an island prison to spend a week with him. She does so, but conceals the fact that her husband is being held as a convict on the island.

A crazed scientist murders his wife, walls her up, then flees. A reporter sets out to track him down. Remake of Unheimliche Geschichten (Richard Oswald, 1919).

Aka Passport to Heaven. In Prussia shoemaker Voight needs a residence permit to get a job, but can only get a job if he already has a permit. He dons a captain's uniform to order a platoon of soldiers to Koepenick to take over the Town Hall to get his permit.

Based on the true story of a cobbler who bought a second-hand captain's uniform, assumed command of a troop of guardsmen, declared the town of Köpenick under military law, arrested the mayor and confiscated the town treasury.

Engineer Walter Fahr has constructed a massive passenger submarine, the 'Gloria'. The vessel undertakes a test journey with various esteemed invitees aboard, together with several animals, and the blind passenger Professor Keigo Sotuma. […] When those aboard the 'Gloria' return to the surface, they find a ship whose entire crew is dead. It is the astronomer Sotuma who figures out what has happened: during their undersea journey, the Earth was scorched by the tail of a comet, and all life extinguished. The 'Gloria' sails back to shore, carrying the final humans into a dead world…

An episode in the life of the Austrian composer Franz Schubert, who wrote the most beautiful love songs, but whose love life was very unhappy: The timid, myopic and rather portly Schubert falls for the beautiful, blond Countess Maria Esterhazy and has impossibly unrealistic fantasies about the two of them as she only admires him for his music. When he’s fired from his position as a teacher in the parish school, the village innkeeper Therese, who secretly has the hots for Schubert, gets him an engagement at a concert in Palace Esterhazy.

Conrad Veidt plays a famous musician who is blackmailed for being gay. Eventually he stands trial and is convicted. At the end the film pleads for the abolition of §175 (the law that punishes homosexuality).

The aging singer Clarina receives a new engagement from a cabaret called the Maison Mouche and must evade the advances of several overbearing men.

In this early version the classic "Hound of the Baskervilles" mystery is not faithfully adapted, Watson's character is absent and there are two Holmes. Holmes' foe is called Stapleton and he menaces Holmes' client Lord Henry and his fiancée, Laura Lyons, masquerading himself as Holmes. Hidden passages, hand bombs and mechanical devices abound, reminding more of a serial than of a Conan Doyle story.

No description available.

No description available.

At the center of this social satire is the wealthy and bored couple Irene and Erik. When Erik meets Hilde, who comes from a humble background, one evening in a chic club, he sees an opportunity for the couple to sexually spice up their worn-out relationship and to escape through a ménage à trois.

An extremely jealous artist slips into a monkey costume and kills all those men who come too close to his wife, another artist.

This movie, directed by Richard Oswald, is based on the operetta "Les contes de Hoffmann" by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), which is a genial musical potpourri from various short stories and novels by the Prussian writer, composer, painter, lawyer and judge E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). While Hoffmann's literary work was longtime considered to be merely fantastical, it was finally researched, in the last years, according to its metaphysical background. Characteristic for Hoffmann's work is his life-long fight against rationalism and for the revelation of nature morte, culminating mostly in carnival-like scenes anticipating literary techniques only described in the works of Bachtin and Bachelard.