Karl Stepanek

Acting

Karl Stepanek

Born 1899-10-27 · Brünn, Moravia, Austria-Hungary [now Brno, Czech Republic]

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 Idol (1949). Commuting between London and Hollywood, Karel Stepanek continued to fight World War II, usually on the wrong side, into such '60s films as Sink the Bismarck! (1960), I Aim at the Stars (1960) and Operation Crossbow (1965).

Acting credits

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

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

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

Na růžích ustláno poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Na růžích ustláno

1935

Never Let Me Go poster
5.9

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

Never Let Me Go

1953

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

Sink the Bismarck! poster
6.8

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

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

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

Narren im Schnee poster
7.0

No synopsis available yet.

Narren im Schnee

1938

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

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

The Bat poster
4.3

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

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

Conspirator poster
5.8

A newlywed suspects her husband of being a Communist spy.

Conspirator

1949

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pozdní láska poster
8.5

No synopsis available yet.

Pozdní láska

1935

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