Karl Stepanek

Acting

Karl Stepanek

Born — Died

1899-10-27 — 1980-12-25

Place of birth

Brünn, Moravia, Austria-Hungary [now Brno, Czech Republic]

Known for

Acting

Credits

64 titles

Though born in Czechoslovakia, actor Karel Stepanek was generally regarded as a German actor due to his extensive film work in Germany (as Karl Stepanek) in the years before World War II. Stepanek fled to England in 1940, where, like many European refugee actors, he specialized in portraying Teutonic villains. He tried to stay away from out-and-out Nazi roles, but his predilection for wearing black uniforms and barking out guttural commands left little doubt as to the political preferences of Stepanek's screen characters. One of his most typical characterizations could be found in the 1946 POW drama, The Captive Heart; Stepanek also registered well as a friendlier foreigner in The Fallen Ido…

Known for

No Hiding Place poster
4.8

No Hiding Place is a British television series that was produced at Wembley Studios by Associated-Rediffusion for the ITV network between 16 September 1959 and 22 June 1967. It was the sequel to the series Murder Bag and Crime Sheet, all starring Raymond Francis as Detective Superintendent, later Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart.

No Hiding Place

1959

Das Kriminalmuseum poster
8.0

Das Kriminalmuseum was a German television series. It ran from 1963 to 1970 on ZDF and was one of its first programs. Each episode began with a tracking shot through an unspecified crime museum, stopping at one of the displays, whose story was then told. Each episode was between 60 and 75 minutes long and featured different actors as the criminal commissioner. The best known was Erik Ode, who in 1969 moved to Der Kommissar, appearing in 97 episodes. The theme music of the series was written by German composer Martin Böttcher, who also composed the complete scores for five episodes.

Das Kriminalmuseum

1963

The Third Man poster
7.9

In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime, only to learn he has died. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a "third man" present at the time of Harry's death, running into interference from British officer Major Calloway, and falling head-over-heels for Harry's grief-stricken lover, Anna.

The Third Man

1949

The Heroes of Telemark poster
6.9

Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physicist Rolf Pedersen in an effort to destroy the German heavy water production plant in rural Telemark.

The Heroes of Telemark

1965

No artwork available
9.0

The series adapted for television some true tales from press correspondents from around the world.

Overseas Press Club - Exclusive!

1957

City Beneath the Sea poster
5.1

Divers Brad and Tony arrive in Jamaica to attempt salvage of the Lady Luck, sunk with all hands and a million in gold. They charter the American Beauty, skippered by attractive Terry, but cannot find the ship. But there's more to the Lady Luck than meets the eye, and undersea skullduggery forms a counterpoint to Brad's romance with Terry, and Tony's with cabaret singer Venita.

City Beneath the Sea

1953

Film credits

1960s · 12 titles

The Heroes of Telemark poster
6.9

Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physicist Rolf Pedersen in an effort to destroy the German heavy water production plant in rural Telemark.

The Heroes of Telemark

1965

Sink the Bismarck! poster
6.9

The story of the breakout of the German battleship Bismarck—accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen—during the early days of World War II. The Bismarck and her sister ship, Tirpitz, were the most powerful battleships in the European theater of World War II. The British Navy must find and destroy Bismarck before it can escape into the convoy lanes to inflict severe damage on the cargo shipping which was the lifeblood of the British Isles. With eight 15 inch guns, it was capable of destroying every ship in a convoy while remaining beyond the range of all Royal Navy warships.

Sink the Bismarck!

1960

Operation Crossbow poster
6.7

Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their secrets and sabotage the plant. The film alternates between German developments of the V-1 missile and V-2 rocket (with a German cast speaking their own language) and discovery by British Intelligence of the weapon.

Operation Crossbow

1965

Our Man in Havana poster
6.7

Jim Wormold is an expatriate Englishman living in pre-revolutionary Havana with his teenage daughter Milly. He owns a vacuum cleaner shop but isn’t very successful so he accepts an offer from Hawthorne of the British Secret Service to recruit a network of agents in Cuba.

Our Man in Havana

1960

The File of the Golden Goose poster
5.7

U.S. Secret Service agent Peter Novak goes undercover with Scotland Yard officer Thompson to halt a murderous gang of counterfeiters known as the Golden Goose. Although Peter is unsure about John's loyalties, the two infiltrate the gang and win the trust of thug Nick "The Owl" Harrison before enduring a series of double-crosses.

The File of the Golden Goose

1969

Before Winter Comes poster
6.0

Drama/Comedy set in a refugee camp in occupied Austria after World War II. A shrewd multi-lingual interpreter who mediates between Russian and British military brass enters into a friendly rivalry with British Major Giles Burnside, who is in charge of assigning the displaced persons into either the American or Russian zones.

Before Winter Comes

1969

The Frozen Dead poster
5.2

A crazed scientist keeps the heads of Nazi war criminals alive until he can find appropriate bodies on which to attach them so he can revive the Third Reich.

The Frozen Dead

1966

I Aim at the Stars poster
6.5

The life story of the famed rocket scientist Dr. Werner von Braun, one of the most brilliant and controversial figures of the space age. Dr. von Braun literally pioneered man's adventure into space through his rocket experiments; his was the brain behind the V-2 rockets which blasted London in World War II; his was also the brain which led America into the development and the launching of space satellites.

I Aim at the Stars

1960

Devil Doll poster
4.8

An evil hyponotist/ventriloquist plots to gain an heiress' millions.

Devil Doll

1964

Licensed to Kill poster
7.0

An English spy (Tom Adams) guards a Scandinavian scientist (Karl Stepanek) who has sold an anti-gravity device to each side.

Licensed to Kill

1965

Murderers Club of Brooklyn poster
8.8

Fifth Jerry Cotton Movie. A rich capitalist is blackmailed and threatened with the murder of his daughter.

Murderers Club of Brooklyn

1967

Brainwashed poster
7.1

Werner von Basil, a Austrian intellectual, was captured by the Nazis in 1938. They want to break him to confess smuggling. Without any mental sustenance, the only thing left to keep his mind busy is an old tactics book for chess.

Brainwashed

1960

1950s · 18 titles

City Beneath the Sea poster
5.1

Divers Brad and Tony arrive in Jamaica to attempt salvage of the Lady Luck, sunk with all hands and a million in gold. They charter the American Beauty, skippered by attractive Terry, but cannot find the ship. But there's more to the Lady Luck than meets the eye, and undersea skullduggery forms a counterpoint to Brad's romance with Terry, and Tony's with cabaret singer Venita.

City Beneath the Sea

1953

The Cockleshell Heroes poster
5.9

During WW2, German ships are "safely" docked upriver at Bordeaux, but the British send a team of kayakers to attack them.

The Cockleshell Heroes

1955

No Highway in the Sky poster
7.0

James Stewart plays aeronautical engineer Theodore Honey, the quintessential absent-minded professor: eccentric, forgetful, but brilliant. His studies show that the aircraft being manufactured by his employer has a subtle but deadly design flaw that manifests itself only after the aircraft has flown a certain number of hours. En route to a crash site to prove his theory, Honey discovers that he is aboard a plane rapidly approaching his predicted deadline.

No Highway in the Sky

1951

Anastasia poster
6.8

Russian exiles in Paris plot to collect ten million pounds from the Bank of England by grooming a destitute, suicidal girl to pose as heir to the Russian throne. While Bounin is coaching her, he comes to believe that she is really Anastasia. In the end, the Empress must decide her claim.

Anastasia

1956

Affair in Trinidad poster
6.4

A nightclub singer enlists her brother-in-law to track down her husband's killer.

Affair in Trinidad

1952

The Traitor poster
7.6

One time members of a resistance group come together every year to remember their dead leader, betrayed to and executed by the Nazis. When it seems that they might finally know the name of the traitor - and that he or she comes from within their own unit - their annual gathering becomes a deadly trial...

The Traitor

1957

Walk East on Beacon poster
5.3

An FBI agent works with a refugee scientist and the Coast Guard to crack a Soviet spy ring in Boston.

Walk East on Beacon

1952

Operation Amsterdam poster
6.1

When Germany invades Holland in 1940, a British intelligence officer and two Dutch diamond merchants go to Amsterdam to persuade the Dutch diamond merchants to evacuate their diamond supplies to England.

Operation Amsterdam

1959

Man of the Moment poster
6.6

Norman is a file clerk who accidentally becomes a British delegate to a diplomatic conference, befriends the queen of a remote island, and winds up a knight. Norman leaves rooms in shambles, tailors in shreds, and diplomats in bandages. Chased by gunmen and assassins of foreign powers, Norman finds himself running through active TV studio sets and interrupts various programs and performances in progress

Man of the Moment

1955

Never Let Me Go poster
5.9

An American reporter falls in love with a Russian ballet dancer.

Never Let Me Go

1953

State Secret poster
6.9

While working in England, an American surgeon Dr. John Marlowe is invited to Vosnia (a fictitious East-European country) to receive an award and demonstrate his life-saving surgery. Unwittingly caught in the middle of a dangerous and corrupt series of political events, Marlowe then becomes the object of a shoot-to-kill, vicious pursuit. Fleeing, he seeks help from an English-speaking actress, Lisa Robinson, and the two attempt to escape across the treacherous mountains of Vosnia.

State Secret

1950

Tale of Three Women poster
10.0

A compilation of 3 stories, "The Wedding Gift", "The Thief of London" and "The Final Twist". Originally part of the Danziger Brothers series "Calling Scotland Yard"

Tale of Three Women

1954

Rough Shoot poster
6.7

An American military officer and his wife move to a cottage in what they think is the peaceful English countryside, only to discover the area is a hotbed of spies and secret agents.

Rough Shoot

1953

A Prize of Gold poster
5.7

A U.S. sergeant, a British sergeant and a British pilot hijack gold for a German refugee's war orphans.

A Prize of Gold

1955

Dangerous Cargo poster
6.4

Inspired by the real events of the attempted heist at Heathrow Airport in 1952, a criminal tricks an old friend into giving away the location of a shipment of gold bullion so he and his gang can steal it.

Dangerous Cargo

1954

The Man in the Road poster
6.4

A brilliant scientist who has lost his memory is hunted by Communist agents out to obtain a secret formula.

The Man in the Road

1956

Cairo Road poster
6.4

In colonial Egypt, a British police officer sets out on a daring hunt for drug smuggling gangs operating along the notorious Cairo Road.

Cairo Road

1950

Secret Venture poster
6.5

An American is visiting Britain and finds himself in possession of a briefcase full of secret documents that the spies of many different countries seem determined to get.

Secret Venture

1955

1940s · 13 titles

The Third Man poster
7.9

In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime, only to learn he has died. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a "third man" present at the time of Harry's death, running into interference from British officer Major Calloway, and falling head-over-heels for Harry's grief-stricken lover, Anna.

The Third Man

1949

The Fallen Idol poster
7.2

Phillipe, the son of an ambassador in London, hero-worships his father's butler Baines. His perception of the man changes when he accidentally discovers the secret that Baines keeps and witnesses the consequences that adults' lies can cause.

The Fallen Idol

1948

Give Us This Day poster
5.7

Exiled from Hollywood due to the blacklist, director Edward Dmytryk briefly operated in England in the late 1940s. Though filmed in its entirety in London, Dmytryk's Give Us This Day is set in New York during the depression. Fellow blacklistee Sam Wanamaker is starred as the head of an Italian immigrant family struggling to survive the economic crisis.

Give Us This Day

1949

Conspirator poster
5.8

A newlywed suspects her husband of being a Communist spy.

Conspirator

1949

Broken Journey poster
6.1

A plane flying over the Swiss Alps develops engine trouble and is forced to crash-land on a glacier. Unable to radio for help because of damaged batteries and with limited food supplies, the survivors must come to a decision -- whether to stay and wait for help they believe is coming or to leave the shelter of the wrecked plane and set out in bad weather to try to reach civilization.

Broken Journey

1948

The Captive Heart poster
6.4

A series of stories about the lives and loves of men in a Prisoner of War camp over five years. The main story is of Hasek (Redgrave) a Czech soldier who needs to keep his identity a secret from the Nazis. To do this, he poses as a dead English Officer and corresponds with the man's wife. Other inmates’ stories are also revealed. Location shooting in the British occupied part of Germany adds believability.

The Captive Heart

1946

Secret Mission poster
4.5

World War II drama in which a member of the French Resistance and three British agents undertake a hazardous mission to infiltrate a German HQ in search of vital information that could lead to the overthrow of the Nazis.

Secret Mission

1942

Our Film poster
NR

A British factory is inefficient because of pre-war rules and red tape. A Soviet trades union representative shows workers and management the value of unity.

Our Film

1942

Counterblast poster
6.3

An escaped World War 2 Nazi doctor impersonates a murdered English doctor so he can work on a vaccination to protect the Germans in their planned germ warfare.

Counterblast

1948

Alles Schwindel poster
7.0

After living in the tropics for five years, Peter Asfeld returns to Amsterdam and wants to marry his childhood friend Julia Vermehren. However, his future father-in-law has read in the horoscope that Peter will one day commit a theft and demands that he do so before the wedding. Peter can't get the thought out of his head, and even in his dreams he commits all kinds of crimes. Inspired by so much imagination, he kidnaps Julia, his future wife, the next day. But the horoscope was wrong.

Alles Schwindel

1940

They Met in the Dark poster
6.3

A Royal navy Commander is tricked by a pretty girl who is working for the Nazis. She tricks him into revealing some military secrets and he is court martial. He vows to track her and her accomplices down.

They Met in the Dark

1943

Tomorrow We Live poster
6.6

British World War II film set in occupied France, portraying the activities of members of the French Resistance and the Nazi tactic of taking and shooting innocent hostages in reprisal for acts of sabotage. The opening credits acknowledge "the official co-operation of General de Gaulle and the French National Committee". It was released as "At Dawn We Die" in the US.

Tomorrow We Live

1943

Escape to Danger poster
8.0

During the Second World War a British schoolteacher working in Denmark is caught up when the Germans invade.

Escape to Danger

1943

1930s · 15 titles

Here's Berlin poster
9.0

Story of a rendezvous in Paris which is prepared through telephone calls between a Berlin telephonist and his female colleague in Paris.

Here's Berlin

1932

A Song for You poster
8.0

During a concert tour, famous tenor Riccardo Gatti meets Lixie at an Aida rehearsal and takes her for a ballet dancer. She is in fact trying to get a position for her boyfriend, so she accepts Gatti's date for supper. When she runs away he publishes a newspaper ad offering to give a concert anywhere she chooses if she shows up. She chooses a swimming pool hoping to discourage him, but he accepts.

A Song for You

1933

Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf poster
6.0

Franz Biberkopf has served four years in prison. His return to normal life is not successful.

Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf

1931

The Bat poster
4.2

The delightful Johann Strauss comic opera Die Fledermaus was mercilessly lampooned in this truly bizarre production. For starters, a framing device has been added: After appearing in 300 consecutive appearances of Fledermaus (which translates as The Bat) the lead tenor (Georg Alexander) imagines that he's seeing bats everywhere. Driven a bit over the edge by all this, he falls asleep and has a nightmare about the opera, with a group of non-singers cast in the leading roles. The original libretto about romantic assignations, political imprisonments and mistaken identity is burlesqued to the hilt: at one point, the hero finds out that his prison cell is surrounded by rubber tubes!

The Bat

1937

War es der im 3. Stock? poster
9.0

Olga, a woman of the demimonde, is shot in her apartment. The bullet was deflected by something, otherwise it would have killed Olga. Witnesses heard a noise at 2 p.m. that sounded like a gunshot. Detective Heidenreich investigates and discovers that the perpetrator must have been one of the tenants in the building. He realizes that many people are suspects.

War es der im 3. Stock?

1939

Narren im Schnee poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Narren im Schnee

1938

Five from the Jazzband poster
7.5

By pure chance, Jessie and his four jazz musicians are hired to play at the cabaret theatre “Trocadero”. Unfortunately, she knows nothing about music and it doesn’t help that all four musicians are in love with her. Jessie doesn’t reciprocate their feelings, because she has a thing for Martin. Unfortunately, Martin believes that Jessie stole his car … and so, right before the premiere at the cabaret, she ends up in jail.

Five from the Jazzband

1932

Three Fathers for Anna poster
6.0

A cabaret singer entrusts her illegitimate daughter to a country doctor but doesn't say which of three friends of his is the father. Rumors are spread and relationships are strained until one man admits the truth.

Three Fathers for Anna

1939

The Grey Pikes Wharf poster
7.0

Otto is pressured by his former girlfriend Mila to marry her. His friend and colleague Franz gets him a new job at Bernhard Münchow's remote auto repair shop, where Otto is safe from Mila for the time being. But then he falls in love with Käthe, the daughter of the owner of the shipyard “Zum grauen Hecht,” and finds a bitter enemy in Ladewig, who is also in love with Käthe and who puts Mila back on Otto's trail. Mila, however, falls in love with garage owner Münchow, who is only interested in her supposed fortune...

The Grey Pikes Wharf

1935

Waltz War poster
8.2

The quarrel between the waltz king Joseph Lanner and his still unknown violinist Johann Strauss. It comes to a break. Strauss is engaged in London and has his first successes there. Thanks to the initially unfortunate intervention of Lanner's daughter, a reconciliation is finally achieved.

Waltz War

1933

Pozdní láska poster
8.5

No synopsis available yet.

Pozdní láska

1935

Hotel Sacher poster
7.0

Vienna is celebrating New Year’s Eve 1913/14. It is the year, which will see the outbreak of the First World War. In Hotel Sacher, the mood is excellent; and although the political atmosphere is charged, there’s an undercurrent of hate and intolerance in the air. It is with this background that Nadja, a Russian spy, meets the Austrian civil servant Stefan. He loves her, but comes under suspicion of being an agent because of this love.

Hotel Sacher

1939

Another Experience poster
7.0

A popular stage tenor can't stay away from his female admirers until his wife threatens to divorce him.

Another Experience

1939

No artwork available
6.5

Seven men in peaceful Switzerland swear lifelong friendship while the rest of the world is at strife. A conflict arises when the daughter of one falls in love with the son of another.

Hermine and the Seven Upright Men

1935

The Unknown poster
7.5

The body of an unknown beautiful woman is fished out of the river and leaves the policemen wondering what drove the girl to such a grisly fate. The film then flashes back to months before, showing the torrid love affair between a young cabaret singer and a rich playboy that ultimately results in tragedy for the girl.

The Unknown

1936

Series credits