![Helmut Dantine](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w185/AcKhHPzV6lCTamh1S2tFr8fgo6V.jpg)
Helmut Dantine
Helmut Dantine was an Austrian-American actor who often played Nazis in thriller films of the 1940s. His best-known performances are perhaps the German pilot in Mrs. Miniver, and the desperate refugee in Casablanca, who tries gambling to obtain travel visa money for himself and his wife. As his acting career waned, he turned to producing.
Dantine enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles. His relatives thought he would go into business, but he became interested in theater. He began his U.S. acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse, while running two gas stations in order to pay his expenses. Dantine was spotted by a talent scout from Warner Bros, who signed him to a contract.
Dantine had uncredited parts in International Squadron and To Be or Not to Be, before his first credited role in MGM's Mrs. Miniver, playing a downed German pilot captured by the title character (played by Greer Garson). It was a huge hit, and Dantine received much positive attention from being in the film. In August 1942, Warners signed him to a new acting contract. The studio kept him busy with roles in the World War II films, The Pied Piper, Desperate Journey fighting Errol Flynn, and The Navy Comes Through. He had a sympathetic role in Casablanca, as a young refugee trying and failing to earn money via gambling. Warners begin to give Dantine more sizeable roles in their "A" films, Watch on the Rhine, Edge of Darkness, playing a Nazi officer, again fighting Errol Flynn, and Mission to Moscow, playing a sympathetic Russian.
Dantine's good looks caused him to receive a lot of fan mail and, in the words of one profile, "the studio began to realize it had something else besides a Hollywood Hitlerite on its hands". Warners announced they had bought Night Action by Norman Krasna as a vehicle for Dantine, but the film appears not to have been made. Instead, he had a large role playing the villain in Northern Pursuit (1943), as a Nazi running loose in northern Canada fighting Errol Flynn again.
Warner Bros. later cast him in a sympathetic role in Passage to Marseille, and he was one of several stars in Hollywood Canteen. In 1944, exhibitors voting for "Stars of Tomorrow", picked Dantine at number 10. Warners gave him a sympathetic lead in Hotel Berlin, as the leader of the German underground. He was once again a Nazi on-the-run in Escape in the Desert, a remake of The Petrified Forest. His last role for Warners was in the film noir, Shadow of a Woman. He then left the studio.
As his acting career wound down, he became a vice-president of Hollywood mogul Joseph Schenck's company, Schenck Enterprises, in 1959; Schenck was his wife's uncle. He later went to work as producer with Robert L. Lippert Productions and then as president of Hand Enterprises Inc.
Among Dantine's later screen appearances, there were three films for which he was the executive producer: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and The Killer Elite, both directed by Sam Peckinpah, and The Wilby Conspiracy. He was also in The Fifth Musketeer and Tarzan the Apeman.
On 2 May 1982, Helmut Dantine died in Beverly Hills from a heart attack at age 63. According to one obituary, "He specialized in portrayals of Nazis, sometimes as the handsome but icy SS sadist battling Allied heroes, sometimes as a sympathetic German soldier forced, against his better judgment, to fight".
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 10.748 |
Birthday | 1918-10-07 |
Place of Birth | Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria] |
Also Known As | Helmut Guttmann, |
![Mrs. Miniver](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/fjPjx6FTaoTussbqoLj6OYTtUyi.jpg)
1942
![Mrs. Miniver](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/fjPjx6FTaoTussbqoLj6OYTtUyi.jpg)
Mrs. Miniver
7/246
Middle-class housewife Kay Miniver deals with petty problems. She and her husband Clem watch her Oxford-educated son Vin court Carol Beldon, the charm...
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Mrs. Miniver
![Operation Crossbow](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/Zxj0YdYf7t7gC63JBDencVKIoQ.jpg)
1965
![Operation Crossbow](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/Zxj0YdYf7t7gC63JBDencVKIoQ.jpg)
Operation Crossbow
6.762/103
Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their secrets and sabotage the plant.The film alternates between Ger...
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Operation Crossbow
![The Story of Mankind](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/lkjbuh3YRgA191YFvlwKPe7qb9U.jpg)
1957
![The Story of Mankind](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/lkjbuh3YRgA191YFvlwKPe7qb9U.jpg)
The Story of Mankind
4.476/21
The devil and the spirit of mankind argue as to whether or not humanity is ultimately good or evil.
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The Story of Mankind
![Whispering City](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/uPH4UbBklgfesKbtmzsMAX84fPC.jpg)
1947
![Whispering City](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/uPH4UbBklgfesKbtmzsMAX84fPC.jpg)
Whispering City
4.8/10
After hearing that a famous actress is dying in a hospital after being hit by a car, a reporter goes to the hospital to interview the actress. She the...
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Whispering City
![Shadow of a Woman](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/jZcoQqWCrggZJCIv2cFMM1Zaqt1.jpg)
1946
![Shadow of a Woman](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/jZcoQqWCrggZJCIv2cFMM1Zaqt1.jpg)
Shadow of a Woman
4.2/10
Brooke's marital life with Eric takes a downturn when she starts suspecting that her husband is starving his son from a prior marriage to death in ord...
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Shadow of a Woman
![Hollywood Canteen](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/4ifU2c7Kbt4sCLbTdLFBqnhPYDp.jpg)
1944
![Hollywood Canteen](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/4ifU2c7Kbt4sCLbTdLFBqnhPYDp.jpg)
Hollywood Canteen
7.3/26
Two soldiers on leave spend three nights at a club offering free of charge food, dancing, and entertainment for servicemen on their way overseas. Club...
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Hollywood Canteen
![Call Me Madam](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/zNemnYu57J8oesfYmjeSD6CVdQQ.jpg)
1953
![Call Me Madam](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/zNemnYu57J8oesfYmjeSD6CVdQQ.jpg)
Call Me Madam
6.3/23
Washington hostess Sally Adams becomes a Truman-era US ambassador to a European grand duchy.
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Call Me Madam
![Passage to Marseille](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/14s5iMOLt8EboZmnltXjB7g2sap.jpg)
1944
![Passage to Marseille](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/14s5iMOLt8EboZmnltXjB7g2sap.jpg)
Passage to Marseille
6.633/60
A freedom-loving French journalist sacrifices his happiness and security to battle Nazi tyranny.
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Passage to Marseille
![Northern Pursuit](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/2tLScsS98Q9rohkX13guzsnTjIB.jpg)
1943
![Northern Pursuit](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/2tLScsS98Q9rohkX13guzsnTjIB.jpg)
Northern Pursuit
5.9/17
Canadian Mountie Steve Wagner captures a German Luftwaffe officer on a spy mission, who later escapes from the prison camp. To catch the spy ring, the...
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Northern Pursuit
![Edge of Darkness](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/vlZDRNrKljJmmTveUToMrI2zAi6.jpg)
1943
![Edge of Darkness](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/vlZDRNrKljJmmTveUToMrI2zAi6.jpg)
Edge of Darkness
6.1/33
The film pivots around the local Norwegian doctor and his family. The doctor's wife (Ruth Gordon) wants to hold on to the pretence of gracious living...
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Edge of Darkness
![Stranger from Venus](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/gb4z8qoKAHLoVX6KnXQK4SdgrDL.jpg)
1954
![Stranger from Venus](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/gb4z8qoKAHLoVX6KnXQK4SdgrDL.jpg)
Stranger from Venus
5/20
Stranger from Venus (a.k.a. Immediate Disaster and The Venusian) is the story of a woman who meets a stranger with no pulse who has the power of life...
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Stranger from Venus
![Hotel Berlin](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/iRg3U3zRa6Ls1dn0WywSWujfQz9.jpg)
1945
![Hotel Berlin](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/iRg3U3zRa6Ls1dn0WywSWujfQz9.jpg)
Hotel Berlin
6.1/12
An assortment of diverse characters gather at the Hotel Berlin in World War II Germany as the Third Reich falls.
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Hotel Berlin
![Fraulein](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/AjfnsZgW8yNerxTrIPciiEZCRKG.jpg)
1958
![Fraulein](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/AjfnsZgW8yNerxTrIPciiEZCRKG.jpg)
Fraulein
7/1
In melodramatic fashion, the film tells the tale of a young German woman who finds herself alone in the world when the rest of her family is killed in...
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Fraulein
![Escape in the Desert](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/n5HDtw5x4Lo3h0fbF7fRB2P8Itx.jpg)
1945
![Escape in the Desert](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/n5HDtw5x4Lo3h0fbF7fRB2P8Itx.jpg)
Escape in the Desert
0/0
Escaped Nazi POWs hold the denizens of a California resort hostage.
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Escape in the Desert
![Watch on the Rhine](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/yCt7CtTpl5Hqu11nshHoQEjNOzr.jpg)
1943
![Watch on the Rhine](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/yCt7CtTpl5Hqu11nshHoQEjNOzr.jpg)
Watch on the Rhine
6.833/39
On the eve of World War II, the German Kurt Müller, his American-born wife Sara, and their three children, having lived in Europe for years, visit Sar...
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Watch on the Rhine
![War and Peace](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/cr8TX9EnAsj9VmB42nBO0SztTv5.jpg)
1956
![War and Peace](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/cr8TX9EnAsj9VmB42nBO0SztTv5.jpg)
War and Peace
6.637/230
Napoleon's tumultuous relations with Russia including his disastrous 1812 invasion serve as the backdrop for the tangled personal lives of two aristoc...
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War and Peace
![Tempest](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/8YJAXasmnkkXqoZwYyjOoAWwRm0.jpg)
1958
![Tempest](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/8YJAXasmnkkXqoZwYyjOoAWwRm0.jpg)
Tempest
6.167/6
A young officer in the army of Empress Catherine of Russia is on his way to his new duty station at a remote outpost. During a blinding snowstorm he c...
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Tempest
![Escape](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/kUmeDhPPPHm8hqsa9MlubxeDSaV.jpg)
1940
![Escape](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/kUmeDhPPPHm8hqsa9MlubxeDSaV.jpg)
Escape
7.393/14
An American goes to pre-war Germany to find his mother and discovers her in a concentration camp. With the help of an American-born widowed countess h...
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Escape
![Casablanca](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/5K7cOHoay2mZusSLezBOY0Qxh8a.jpg)
1943
![Casablanca](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/5K7cOHoay2mZusSLezBOY0Qxh8a.jpg)
Casablanca
8.162/5253
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
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Casablanca
![Guerrilla Girl](https://nicosiaefe.gov.cy/video/assets/no-poster.png)
1953
![Guerrilla Girl](https://nicosiaefe.gov.cy/video/assets/no-poster.png)
Guerrilla Girl
0/0
Thriller - During World War II, Helmut Dantine specialized in playing villainous Nazis in Hollywood melodramas. He offers a compelling performance in...
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Guerrilla Girl
![Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/gRWVf3InNlIlFT3WB9MnFdOwcYQ.jpg)
1974
![Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/gRWVf3InNlIlFT3WB9MnFdOwcYQ.jpg)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
7.1/350
An American bartender and his prostitute girlfriend go on a road trip through the Mexican underworld to collect a $1 million bounty on the head of a d...
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Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
![The Wilby Conspiracy](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/4BBXpqhBy18oGFkZW4zYqZgMKSU.jpg)
1975
![The Wilby Conspiracy](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/4BBXpqhBy18oGFkZW4zYqZgMKSU.jpg)
The Wilby Conspiracy
6.5/31
Having spent 10 years in prison for nationalist activities, Shack Twala is finally ordered released by the South African Supreme Court but he finds hi...
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The Wilby Conspiracy
![Alexander the Great](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/e3P3GiCKaEmLxzibDMzALmPbEHL.jpg)
1956
![Alexander the Great](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/e3P3GiCKaEmLxzibDMzALmPbEHL.jpg)
Alexander the Great
5.894/85
An engrossing spectacle set in the 4th-century BC, in which Alexander of Greece leads his troops forth, conquering all of the known world, in the beli...
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Alexander the Great
![The Fifth Musketeer](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/tHYyGTBO9pFOFzLYdc9R5GiJGXR.jpg)
1979
![The Fifth Musketeer](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/tHYyGTBO9pFOFzLYdc9R5GiJGXR.jpg)
The Fifth Musketeer
5.1/13
King Louis XIV has without his knowledge a twin brother, Philippe, but when he is told, he immediately locks up his brother in the Bastille. The king...
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The Fifth Musketeer
![Hell on Devil's Island](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/P229dgsWA2twS7I2K11hhorVOE.jpg)
1957
![Hell on Devil's Island](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/P229dgsWA2twS7I2K11hhorVOE.jpg)
Hell on Devil's Island
6/0
An ex-con from Devil's Island enlists the support of the governor's daughter in exposing a prison mining operation.
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Hell on Devil's Island
![Mission to Moscow](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/pQ2hj7sfTwUGtz7mulxAc28hKYQ.jpg)
1943
![Mission to Moscow](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/pQ2hj7sfTwUGtz7mulxAc28hKYQ.jpg)
Mission to Moscow
5.2/17
Ambassador Joseph Davies is sent by FDR to Russia to learn about the Soviet system and returns to America as an advocate of Stalinism.
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Mission to Moscow
![Kean: Genius or Scoundrel](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/l9HQNGRjxfUrIWh9JTLD4TXyCM8.jpg)
1957
![Kean: Genius or Scoundrel](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/l9HQNGRjxfUrIWh9JTLD4TXyCM8.jpg)
Kean: Genius or Scoundrel
6.8/4
England, first half of the 19th century. Edmund Kean is a celebrated theatre actor, notorious for his tumultuous private life. He is in love with the...
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Kean: Genius or Scoundrel
![To Be or Not to Be](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/dDQRpEoyjHT4fzw9cNklIvZuXYg.jpg)
1942
![To Be or Not to Be](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/dDQRpEoyjHT4fzw9cNklIvZuXYg.jpg)
To Be or Not to Be
7.851/683
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
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To Be or Not to Be
![The File on Devlin](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/wUHB3x3wknVMgoRTXZRq2eMSD3m.jpg)
1969
![The File on Devlin](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/wUHB3x3wknVMgoRTXZRq2eMSD3m.jpg)
The File on Devlin
0/0
A young woman finds herself engulfed in Cold War intrigue when her father, a Nobel Prize-winning author, vanishes while travelling near the Russian bo...
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The File on Devlin
![The Killer Elite](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/d8G9oXJcFjl7dPVVg83HpKQ9td9.jpg)
1975
![The Killer Elite](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/d8G9oXJcFjl7dPVVg83HpKQ9td9.jpg)
The Killer Elite
5.8/106
Mike Locken is one of the principal members of a group of freelance spies. A significant portion of their work is for the CIA, and while on a case for...
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The Killer Elite
![The Pied Piper](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/sqotZHwwBq9LJrTzXJow6Uos6Up.jpg)
1942
![The Pied Piper](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/sqotZHwwBq9LJrTzXJow6Uos6Up.jpg)
The Pied Piper
6.8/10
Englishman Mr. Howard is on a fishing holiday in eastern France when the Germans invade in 1940. Setting off to try and get back home he is persuaded...
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