
Harry R. Sokal
Production
Biography
Harry R. Sokal (also Henry R. Sokal), born February 20, 1898 in Craiova and died March 7, 1979 in Munich, was a German film producer of Romanian origin and of the Jewish faith. Harry Sokal produced 22 films between 1926 and 1977. He specialized in the production of films related to the mountain, mainly those of Arnold Fanck and Leni Riefenstahl. After the National Socialists seized power in 1933, he emigrated to England before settling in France in 1937. In 1941, he moved to the United States where he worked for the small production company Monogram before return to Germany in 1949 where he founded the production company Henry Sokal-Film. He produced his first post-war work, Föhn, which was a remake of his greatest success, The White Inferno of Piz Palü. Until his death, he worked with the Munich studios Bavaria Filmstudios located in Grünwald. His most famous post-war film was The Hero and the Soldier in 1958 with Otto Wilhelm Fischer, based on the comedy by George Bernard Shaw. Harry Sokal was married to actress Charlotte Kerr. He died in 1979 and is buried in Grünwald.
Known For
No description available.
German Film Award

Based on extensive interviews, shot on 16mm in a series of static long takes, Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland, is one of the most fascinating examples of "Film history on film" ever produced. Straschek devoted years to researching the topic and accumulating both film and non-film materials. Apart from some radio features and articles, however, this 290-minute TV programme remains the only published trace of Straschek's lifelong work on the emigration of film personnel. He had intended to publish a three-volume book, encompassing all available data about 3,000 emigrants originating from the centre and peripheries of film production, but the book never materialised.
Film Emigration from Nazi Germany

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II: Leopold Trepper, a colonel in the Red Army, travels to Belgium under a false name and sets up a spy ring there. Together with his employees Viktor Sukulow-Gurewitsch, Johann Wenzel, Hillel Katz and Michail Makarow, he succeeds in establishing a spy network throughout Belgium and France in a very short time. With the help of his cover companies - a chain of raincoat shops and later the import-export company Simexco ”- Trepper can collect information from the economy and the Wehrmacht, about Atlantic Wall construction sites and railway lines, and send it to Moscow. The agents also get help from patriots who want to free their countries from the occupation by the Germans.
The Red Chapel

A renegade USAF general, Lawrence Dell, escapes from a military prison and takes over an ICBM silo near Montana and threatens to provoke World War 3 unless the President reveals details of a secret meeting held just after the start of the Vietnam War between Dell and the then President's most trusted advisors.
Twilight's Last Gleaming

Mystery abounds when it is discovered that, one by one, the greatest chefs in Europe are being killed. The intriguing part of the murders is that each chef is killed in the same manner that their own special dish is prepared in. Food critics and the (many) self-proclaimed greatest chefs in Europe demand the mystery be solved.
Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?

1865: Swiss captain Bluntschli fights as mercenary in the war between Bulgaria and Serbia. When his group's attacked by a few Bulgarian troopers, he learns that he's got the wrong ammunition for his cannon and has to flee. His flight leads him right into the bedroom of his enemy's fiancée.
Arms and the Man

A music comedy directed by Dietrich Haugk based on the play by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.
Heldinnen

Dr. Johannes Krafft climbs a 12,000-foot mountain over and over again to search for his wife, who was lost on their honeymoon. Another couple makes the dangerous climb with him.
The White Hell of Pitz Palu

In the mountains, Diotima meets Karl and fall in love and have an affair. Karl's friend Vigo mistakenly believes she's in love with him, causing rifts in all relationships.
The Holy Mountain

Journalist Will Roczinsky is dead. He was investigating UFO sightings. A TV broadcast summarizes the events up to his death. When broadcast at the time, viewers believed to be watching a documentary instead of a teleplay.
The Delegation

For Balduin, going out to beer parties with his fellow students and fighting out disputes at the tip of the sword have lost their charms. He wants to find love; but how would he, a penniless student, ever dare looking up to any woman worth of loving? Absorbed in his dreary thoughts and indifferent to the advances of Lyduschka, Balduin is unexpectedly offered a fortune by the mysterious money-lender Scapinelli - but on a strange condition...
The Student of Prague

As sole female Junta is the only one who can climb a dangerous mountain, villagers deem her as a witch.
The Blue Light

Intended as a light farce this comedy by Luigi Commencini is a little plodding in its story about a bank manager who has had it with his buttoned-down, boring job. One Monday he can no longer face the tedium of both his work and his life and so he stays home and rebels by playing with toys and joining in on a radio concert with his own instruments. His erratic behavior does not go unnoticed and soon a winsome psychiatrist whom he knows and secretly admires, is right there trying to help him. The newly liberated bank manager logically grasps this opportunity to press forward his innermost feelings.
And That on Monday Morning

10-year-old Rosmarin von Stetten lives with his widowed father Robert in the big city. During the holidays one day in the morning Rosmarin goes to the lake near the castle and meets Thymian, the poorest boy of the village, whose mother did not come back from the war and who has to do several jobs in the village for his living. The boys enter a boat, but both fall into the lake. Thymian crawls out of the water first and is found by a servant from the castle, who thinks he is Rosmarin and bring him to the castle and to bed. The boy doesn't know what happens and thinks he's spellbound...
Holidays in Tyrol

The owner of the place of Chamonix covets the inn, run by the Michel's uncle, whose business goes bad. Michel decides to participate in a ski competition to help uncle.
They Met on Skis

The exploits of village girl Hannes and her attempts to master skiing and ski-jumping aided by the local expert.
The White Ecstasy

Three arias from Antonín Dvořák´s fairytale opera Rusalka turned in to a movie, sung by Gabriela Beňačková (Rusalka), Libuše Márová (Witch), René Tuček (Hunter).