Karl Stepanek
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).
| Known For | Acting |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 1.331 |
| Birthday | 1899-10-27 |
| Place of Birth | Brünn, Moravia, Austria-Hungary [now Brno, Czech Republic] |
| Also Known As | Karl Stepanek, Karel Štěpánek, Karel Stepanek, |
1955
Man of the Moment
6.4/13
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...
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Man of the Moment
1967
Murderers Club of Brooklyn
8.7/3
Fifth Jerry Cotton Movie. A rich capitalist is blackmailed and threatened with the murder of his daughter.
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Murderers Club of Brooklyn
1948
The Fallen Idol
7.1/165
Phillipe, the son of an ambassador in London, idolizes Baines, his father's butler, a kind of hero in the eyes of the child, whose perception changes...
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The Fallen Idol
1964
Devil Doll
4.6/44
An evil hyponotist/ventriloquist plots to gain an heiress' millions.
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Devil Doll
1965
Operation Crossbow
6.7/105
Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their secrets and sabotage the plant. The film alternates between Ge...
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Operation Crossbow
1952
Affair in Trinidad
6.3/50
A nightclub singer enlists her brother-in-law to track down her husband's killer.
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Affair in Trinidad
1956
Anastasia
6.79/167
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 Russ...
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Anastasia
1955
The Cockleshell Heroes
5.8/26
During WW2, German ships are "safely" docked upriver at Bordeaux, but the British send a team of kayakers to attack them.
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The Cockleshell Heroes
1953
Never Let Me Go
5.6/17
An American reporter falls in love with a Russian ballet dancer.
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Never Let Me Go
1953
City Beneath the Sea
5.1/16
Two adventures dive for treasure off the coast of Jamaica.
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City Beneath the Sea
1960
Sink the Bismarck!
6.8/100
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 Bi...
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Sink the Bismarck!
1969
The File of the Golden Goose
5.5/15
U.S. Secret Service agent Peter Novak goes undercover with Scotland Yard officer Thompson to halt a murderous gang of counterfeiters known as the Gold...
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The File of the Golden Goose
1937
Die Fledermaus
4/2
The delightful Johann Strauss comic opera Die Fledermaus was mercilessly lampooned in this truly bizarre production. For starters, a framing device ha...
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Die Fledermaus
1946
The Captive Heart
6.2/22
A series of stories about the lives and loves of nine men in a Prisoner of War Camp over five years. Location shooting in the British occupied part of...
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The Captive Heart
1943
They Met in the Dark
6.3/13
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 m...
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They Met in the Dark
1949
Conspirator
5.9/21
A newlywed suspects her husband of being a Communist spy.
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Conspirator
1952
Walk East on Beacon
5.056/18
An FBI agent works with a refugee scientist and the Coast Guard to crack a Soviet spy ring in Boston.
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Walk East on Beacon
1966
The Frozen Dead
5/30
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...
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The Frozen Dead
1955
Secret Venture
0/1
An American is visiting Britain and finds himself in possession of a briefcase full of secret documents that the spies of many different countries see...
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Secret Venture
1966
Sperrbezirk
3/2
The story of a pimp who falls in love with one of his victims, is "purified" by it, but also perishes. A colportage that vacillates between sentimenta...
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Sperrbezirk
1955
A Prize of Gold
5.4/8
A U.S. sergeant, a British sergeant and a British pilot hijack gold for a German refugee's war orphans.
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A Prize of Gold
1969
Before Winter Comes
5.9/12
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...
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Before Winter Comes
1954
Tale of Three Women
0/0
A compilation of 3 stories, "The Wedding Gift", "The Thief of London" and "The Final Twist". Originally part of the Danziger Brothers series "Calling...
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Tale of Three Women
1965
Licensed to Kill
5.5/2
An English spy (Tom Adams) guards a Scandinavian scientist (Karl Stepanek) who has sold an anti-gravity device to each side.
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Licensed to Kill
1954
Dangerous Cargo
5.2/3
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 shi...
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Dangerous Cargo
1950
Cairo Road
5.8/6
In colonial Egypt, a British police officer sets out on a daring hunt for drug smuggling gangs operating along the notorious Cairo Road.
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Cairo Road
1957
West of Suez
0/0
In this suspense movie, a Yankee mercenary is hired to blow up an Arab dignitary.
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West of Suez
1959
Operation Amsterdam
5.8/14
When Germany invades Holland in 1940, a British intelligence officer and two Dutch diamond merchants go to Amsterdam to persuade the Dutch diamond mer...
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Operation Amsterdam
1932
Five from the Jazzband
7/1
By pure chance, Jessie and his four jazz musicians are hired to play at the cabaret theatre “Trocadero”. Unfortunately, she knows nothing about music...
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Five from the Jazzband
1931
Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf
6.1/18
Franz Biberkopf has served four years in prison. His return to normal life is not successful.
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Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf
1943
Tomorrow We Live
5.6/5
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 shoo...
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Tomorrow We Live
1949
The Third Man
7.9/1848
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...
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The Third Man
1949
Give Us This Day
5.9/13
Exiled from Hollywood due to the blacklist, director Edward Dmytryk briefly operated in England in the late 1940s. Though filmed in its entirety in Lo...
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Give Us This Day
1953
Rough Shoot
6.2/5
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 hot...
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Rough Shoot
1942
Secret Mission
4.2/9
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 sear...
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Secret Mission
1939
The Leghorn Hat
8.7/3
Der Florentiner Hut (The Leghorn Hat), a 1939 German film directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner
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The Leghorn Hat
1951
The Third Visitor
6/6
Suave supercilious Carling (Karel Stepanek) receives several callers to his isolated house, all of whom hold a grudge against him. Next morning a corp...
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The Third Visitor
1960
Brainwashed
6.75/12
Werner von Basil, a Austrian intellectual, was captured by the Nazis in 1938. They want to break him to confess smuggling. Without any mental sustenan...
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Brainwashed
1965
The Heroes of Telemark
6.9/154
Set in German-occupied Norway, resistance fighter Knut Straud enlists the reluctant physicist Rolf Pedersen in an effort to destroy the German heavy w...
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The Heroes of Telemark
1936
The Unknown
6/1
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 fi...
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The Unknown
1943
Escape to Danger
0/0
During the Second World War a British schoolteacher working in Denmark is caught up when the Germans invade.
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Escape to Danger
1932
Here's Berlin
9/1
Story of a rendezvous in Paris which is prepared through telephone calls between a Berlin telephonist and his female colleague in Paris.
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Here's Berlin
1933
A Song for You
0/0
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...
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A Song for You
1939
War es der im 3. Stock?
0/0
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War es der im 3. Stock?
1935
Hermine and the Seven Upright Men
5.7/3
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...
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Hermine and the Seven Upright Men
1935
Der Außenseiter
0/0
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Der Außenseiter
1932
Spione im Savoy-Hotel
5/1
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Spione im Savoy-Hotel
1950
State Secret
6.567/15
Visiting in England, an American surgeon Doctor John Marlowe is decoyed to a middle European country, and discovers the operation he is to perform is...
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State Secret
1948
Broken Journey
6/7
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 batte...
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Broken Journey
1956
The Man in the Road
6.3/3
A brilliant scientist who has lost his memory is hunted by Communist agents out to obtain a secret formula.
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The Man in the Road
1963
Aufstand der Gehorsamen
0/0
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Aufstand der Gehorsamen
1970
The Games
7.2/6
From Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy, Australia and behind the Iron Curtain. They are the most superbly conditioned animals in the wor...
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The Games
1938
Narren im Schnee
0/0
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Narren im Schnee
1933
Waltz War
7.7/3
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...
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Waltz War
2003
The Heroes of Telemark: Location report from Norway
0/0
Over one hour of black-and-white location footage and interviews with the stars and director, all staged outdoors in manifestly frigid conditions. Man...
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The Heroes of Telemark: Location report from Norway
1960
Our Man in Havana
6.7/104
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 ve...
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Our Man in Havana
1949
Golden Arrow
0/0
On a journey from Paris to London, a Briton, a Frenchman and an American bond with each other and indulge in a romantic fantasy about a girl they see.
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Golden Arrow
1951
No Highway in the Sky
6.9/56
James Stewart plays aeronautical engineer Theodore Honey, the quintessential absent-minded professor: eccentric, forgetful, but brilliant. His studies...
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No Highway in the Sky
1939
Hotel Sacher
6.7/3
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 excel...
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Hotel Sacher
1938
Klatovští dragouni
0/0
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Klatovští dragouni
1957
The Traitor
7/4
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 t...
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The Traitor
1935
Na růžích ustláno
0/0
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Na růžích ustláno
1935
Pozdní láska
9/1
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Pozdní láska
1948
Counterblast
6/5
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...
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Counterblast
1942
Our Film
0/0
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...
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