The Ultimate 'Screen Nazi' - Where Eagles Dare Star's Forgotten Essex Grave

Mark Felton Productions ^ | 2/15/26 | Mark Felton

[MAGA2017]

When I was growing up in the 1980s, I often saw old war movies on TV, and in many appeared a certain German actor usually playing a Nazi villain, from 'Where Eagles Dare' to 'Escape to Victory'. I recently discovered that this star, Anton Diffring, is buried only 9 miles from my childhood home, so I decided to make a pilgrimage and find his largely forgotten last resting place and thank him for so many great performances.

[rlmorel]

That is a fetching picture!

[Charles Martel]

Curd Jürgens

Also played non-Nazi characters, as in Me and the Colonel, where he plays a Polish officer evading capture alongside a Jewish refugee played by Danny Kaye.

[rlmorel]

Brilliant...just briliiant in "Blade Runner"!

Heh, after saying how much I liked his acting, a weird guy I used to work with was insistent that I watch another of his movies, which he insisted was Hauer's best work: Hobo With A Shotgun.

I didn't get more than about 20 minutes into it before I realized that if my wife came out and saw what I was watching, she might divorce me then and there on the grounds of being creepy and morally twisted enough to even watch something like that.

It is one of the few movies I have turned off and never seen the ending on. Another one was Under The Skin with Scarlett Johansson.

I don't generally watch that kind of movie, and as a guy, I didn't need to have nightmares about some gal seducing me who was as good looking as Scarlett Johansson luring me into some black liquid killing zone, because there was a time in my life I might just have voluntarily followed her in a completely zombie-like fashion!

I didn't need that bouncing around inside of my head.

[rlmorel]

Oh, I agree. That was a cinematic window into just how deeply corrupted humans can become. (and worse)

How could one do that job (Commandant of a large Nazi concentration camp) and not become a twisted and shriveled demon?

[MAGA2017]

I have a book called “Hellraisers” by Robert Sellers. It chronicles the lives of Burton, Harris, Peter O’Toole and Oliver Reed and focuses much on their drinking exploits. Burton plays a character in the Wild Geese who is a heavy drinker but is an effective commander of men in combat. The studio balked at having him AND Harris. The director was told no insurance company would be “made enough” to cover Harris. Harris had to defer half his salary as evidence he would behave during filming.

[MAGA2017]

Colossus the Forbin Project is an underrated gem of a film.

[pierrem15]

I loved Rat Patrol as a kid.

[pierrem15]

According to Peter O'Toole, he, Harris and Burton occasionally hung out at bars together.

That must have been truly epic drinking, "a drunkenness no 10 men of today could achieve," as Homer would have said.

Saw O'Toole say once he was so blitzed he wandered far into some part of London and sort of came to and had no idea where he was. He went to a phone booth and called his agent to pick him up. His agent, of course, asked where he was, and of course he replied, "I have no idea." I think they had to get the operator on the line to tell them where the phone booth was.

[Rummyfan]

I think Ralph Fiennes playing Amon Göth in Schindler's List also qualifies.

Now that guy was the personification for evil.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Where Eagkes Dare was a fun little romp. How many of those little dynamite things did they pack into that one backpack.

[skepsel]

Also the toy airplane engineer in the original “Flight of the Phoenix”, with Jimmy Stewart.

[Rummyfan]

That is not the same as characterizing Luftwaffe pilots or Wehrmacht solders were evil. Many of them were simply roped in the same way young men have been roped in for centuries.

Of course then Germans, the Prussians and Hessian's especially, had a long history of professional soldiery. Bu Hitlwr’s great move was to make them all swear personsl loyalty to him. And quaint as it may seem a solemn oath by these men was something even higher tan legally binding. Breaking it was not a crime. It was a sin. As paradoxical as that seems with the evil of the war they were conducting, that was the case for many. And once the war starts, you're truly committed.

[Rummyfan]

And was an actual POW during the war…. And played one in THE GREAT ESCAPE.

[Rummyfan]

LOL!

[Rummyfan]

More beautiful than Lili Von Schtup!

[Rummyfan]

Reminds me of my Greek friend who did not want to leave the old country to come to the U S of A. He hated to leave his brother’s behind!

[Rummyfan]

Hauer was really good in BLIND FURY - or maybe it’s BLIND JUSTICE - too. Okay it’s a sh*try B-flick but has a decent cast over all - Randall ‘Tex’ Cobb - and a good story. I don’t think he was ever too concerned about how he chose his roles wrt to where that would leave him for the next opportunity.

[Rummyfan]

Reed only got the role in GLADIATOR when he solemnly swore to director Ridley Scott that he would show up sober and ready to work on the days
He was scheduled. But his time off was time off. He completed most of his work…. But he did not leave Malta alive unfortunately.

[Rummyfan]

Hardy Kruger fell in love with Africa on that shoot and bought a place there and returned for the rest of his life. True.

[gnarledmaw]

But they werent conducting an evil war. The things being referred to as evil werent known at the time for their part and the US admitted that we didnt actually know about these things occurring. The US refused to let a boatload dock and sent them away because the US didnt want them either.

None of these things were understood to be real let alone “evil” until the end of the war.