home plays overview hot news films tv photos download shop discussion best scene study

all the sites

Steven Berkoff  television

1990s



 

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance - title

War and Remembrance from 1998 directed by Dan Curtis who also directed Berkoff in the film Intruders.

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance  - Robert Mitchum

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance  - zyklon

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance - Adolf Hitler

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance

"The German actors view me suspiciously. An Englishman playing Hitler? I get the wig on, the false jowls, and then the famous signature- the moustache, I become him and him me- the symbiosis of the actor with his part. I walk on the set and everyone quietens down. This is not a likeness. This is he." (from Overview, Steven Berkoff, 1994).

Berkoff is very good in his role, and he does create a good physical likeness.  His Hitler twitches with psychopathic megalomania.  A television mini-series of more than 20 hours (12 DVDs!!). The Berkoff scenes are full of tension, the other scenes drag and drag on, Mitchem particularly bad, and Gielgud too predictable.

Director Dan Curtis also directed Berkoff in the film Intruders.  The director photography iz Dietrich Lohmann

Steven Berkoff - War and Remembrance - credit

All images from the film.





Steven Berkoff - Expelling the Demon

Expelling the Demon from 1999.  Devlin Crow directs a five minute cartoon.

"Tongue drawn and slaughtered, oral hygiene is reaching new extremes. The Steven Berkoff voiced bedsit man wages war on own mouth after lecherous failing. Words fail, so bleed all about it" (Devlin Crow, 1999, Animate Online click here).

Steven Berkoff - Expelling the Demon

Steven Berkoff - Expelling the Demon

"The story takes place in a bedroom where, following an embarrassing sexual encounter, it shows a naked man’s disaffection with his own tongue. Tongue being the articulator of the man’s voice, has been his lifetime proxy. But it is beginning to brazenly assert itself and fly in the face of its owner. The man can tolerate this no more and a power struggle ensues during which we learn something of the tongues dubious nature" (from Expelling the Demon website on Your Cinema, click here).

Berkoff is quite good in the role with a stream of consciousness monologue.

Steven Berkoff - Expelling the Demon - title

Lindsay Duncan voices the woman.

The screenplay is by A-Soma, the editor is Tony Fish and there is music by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis and Susan Stenger.

Steven Berkoff - Expelling the Demon

All images from the film, except the poster from the Your Cinema site.





La Femme Nikita - Title  La Femme Nikita - In Between

La Femme Nikita, based on Luc Besson's French film Nikita, this is the television adaptation.  Nikita, played by Peta Wilson, is an operative for The Section.

The episode In Between (2.20) from 1998.  Nikita relaxes, but of course her relaxation is interrupted.

 La Femme Nikita In Between

The Section team have to tackle Abel Goellner, an international financier who makes much of his money dealing with terrorists.  The Section want to hijack the funds in his various bank accounts.

Nikita is part of a team pretending to be able to transfer money secretly.  They arrange to meet Goellner, and are initially met by Carlo Giraldi, played by Steven Berkoff.

 Steven Berkoff in La Femme Nikita

He appears to be the financial helper of Goellner.  After the meeting with Goellner, Giraldi passed a note to Nikita.

La Femme Nikita - In Between  Berkoff La Femme Nikita Inside Out

Nikita has the note checked by The Section and fingerprints reveal the person to be one of their operatives Charles Sand.  The records state he is dead.  It turns out he was planted in the organisation nine years ago but despite regular messages from him, he has been ignored and does not understand why he has not been brought out before.

La Femme Nikita - In Between

Operations regard him as an embarrassment and Nikita is ordered to kill him.  She doesn't want to do it...

La Femme Nikita - Inside Out

..but The Section handle it anyway.

One of the regular Nikita characters is Michael Birkoff (different spelling) played by Matthew Ferguson.

A good role for Berkoff, distinguished, but unhappiness and longing for his wife who he has not seen for nine years, do come out.

Steven Berkoff La Femme Nikita

All images from the DVD  of the episode.





Steven Berkoff - Brasseye - title  Steven Berkoff - Brasseye - episode

Brasseye, the episode Science from 1997.  The spoof documentary series includes celebrities who believe they are in a real documentary.  Steven Berkoff appears for a few minutes using a hammer to destroy models, showing the effect of "heavy electricity" which has crushed some Sri Lankans so badly that some are now only eight inches tall.

Steven Berkoff - Brasseye

Steven Berkoff - Brasseye - signature

He is clearly reading from the script on the table, and like the other celebrities he signs a letter to the Sri Lankan embassy complaining about their lack of action on heavy electricity.  But he is so carefree and happy, and did he really believe some Sri Lankans were hit by heavy electricity are now only eight inches?  Or was he the only guest on BrassEye who knew he was in a spoof.

All images from the film.





Steven Berkoff Space Precinct Deadline  Steven Berkoff Space Precinct Deadline

Steven Berkoff in the Space Precinct episode Deadline from 1994.  Aliens are found dumped with their organs removed- "heart, liver, all three kidneys".

Steven Berkoff Space Precinct  Deadline

This is an update of the Burke and Hare body-snatcher tale, with Berkoff playing the mad surgeon taking body parts. One of the policemen acts as a decoy and almost comes under Berkoff´s laser knife, but ultimately it is Berkoff who dies, shot by one of his alien body-snatchers.

Steven Berkoff Space Precinct Deadline

The series is by Gerry Anderson who also did UFO in which a young Berkoff appeared, but unlike UFO the acting of the regulars is poor,  but the audience here is much younger.  The effects which try to copy Blade Runner are at times good.  The director is John Glen who directed various Bond films including Berkoff in Octopussy.

Steven Berkoff Space Precinct Deadline

Steven Berkoff Space Precinct Deadline

Steven must at times wonder if the money is worth it.


Steven Berkoff Space Precinct Deadline

All images from the DVD of the episode.





   Steven Berkoff - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Business as Usual - episode title

"If he was a bit shorter and his teeth were a bit sharper, he'd make a good Ferengi"

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from 1993, directed by Siddig El Fadil.  Steven Berkoff plays Hagath, a gun runner, in the Business as Usual episode.

Steven Berkoff - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Armin Shimerman as Quark  Steven Berkoff - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Terry Farrel as Jadzia Dax

Armin Shimerman as naive Quark (one of his 148 appearances in the series) and Terry Farrel as Jadzia Dax.  Quark has debts and is persuaded to help in arms dealing but Jadzia disapproves.

Steven Berkoff - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Steven Berkoff - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Berkoff as Hagath, who supplies the arms, with girlfriend Talura played by Charlie Curtis.

Steven Berkoff - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Steven Berkoff - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

A happy smiling client.

Steven Berkoff - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Berkoff plays the affable businessman who every so often reveals the real undercurrent of evil.

Steven Berkoff - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Business as Usual - credit

The episode features quotes from and references to The Third Man, Taxi Driver etc.

The director of photography is Jonathan West and the editor is Michael Westmore II

As with other similar series the back room becomes bloated with 2 executive producers, 1 supervising producer, 1 co-supervising producer, coordinating producer, 3 producers, 1 co-producer, 1 co-executive producer, 1 associate producer as well as 2 assistants t producers.  How many actually contributed to the episode or the series?

All images from the DVD of the film.






Steven Berkoff - Intruders  - title

Intruders, a double episode television film on alien abductions. A woman turns up at a highway restaurant in shock. As the plot develops it is apparent she is being abducted and experimented on by aliens

Steven Berkoff - Intruders  - Radar

Steven Berkoff - Intruders  - Mare Winningham

Steven Berkoff - Intruders  -Alien Implant

The film suffers from comparisons with earlier films such as John Carpenter's Starman and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters.

Steven Berkoff - Intruders  - Old House  Steven Berkoff - Intruders  - Old House

Steven Berkoff - Intruders - Alien Operation

Steven Berkoff - Intruders - Therapy

Steven Berkoff - Intruders - UFO

Steven Berkoff - Intruders - Alien

The aliens apprar in a few forms, none of them convincing.

Steven Berkoff - Intruders  Steven Berkoff - Intruders

Steven Berkoff enters in cowboy costume and a strange accent and introduces himself as a UFO-ologist (pronouncing it euphologist).  Later he reappears more convincingly in a suit.

Steven Berkoff - Intruders

Steven Berkoff - Intruders - Richard Crenna

Steven Berkoff - Intruders

Steven Berkoff - Intruders

Steven Berkoff - Intruders

Steven Berkoff - Intruders

 Directed by Dan Curtis in 1992. Curtis also directed Berkoff in War and Remembrance.

Steven Berkoff - Intruders - credit

All images from the film.






A Season of Giants title

A Season of Giants 1991, a six hour mini-series made for television.   It is also called La primavera di Michelangelo, and Michelangelo the Last Giant.  Directed by Jerry London.

A Season of Giants - Michelangelo - Mark Frankel  A Season of Giants - John Glover

The main giants of the title are Michelangelo played by Mark Frankel (left) and Leonardo da Vinci played by John Glover (right).

The direction and photography of the film is pedestrian, and the acting of the supporting actors, some probably dubbed into English, is very wooden.

Steven Berkoff A Season of Giants Savonarola

Steven Berkoff plays Savonarola- he would also play the role in The Borgias from 2011.  Here Savonarola administers the last rites.

Steven Berkoff - A Season of Giants  Steven Berkoff - A Season of Giants

There are beautiful locations, but these are hardly used.

Steven Berkoff - A Season of Giants - Leonardo da Vinci wings flying

The film gives little insight into the masterpieces produced by Michelangelo and da Vinci.  The Mona Lisa is shown face-on with no focus on details bringing out insights.  Compare with the film Savage Messiah about the painting Gaudier which conveys the beauty of his work.  Above the scientific investigations of da Vinci are trivialised.

Steven Berkoff - A Season of Giants - hands

Steven Berkoff - A Season of Giants - credit Stephen Berkoff

The credits manage to spell Steven Berkoff's name incorrectly.

Cinematography was by Daniele Nannuzzi and Film Editing was by John A. Martinelli.

All images from the film.





Steven Berkoff - Sins

Sins, a mini-series from 1991, lasting more than six hours but it seems longer.  When Helene (Joan Collins) and her brother Edmund (Timothy Dalton) were children they saw their mother imurdered by the Nazi Karl Von Eiderfeld (Steven Berkoff).  Collins becomes a major fashion designer, and she succeeds is getting Berkoff sentenced to jail for life. But he is reprieved and comes looking for vengeance.

Steven Berkoff - Sins

Steven Berkoff - Sins

Steven Berkoff - Sins

Steven Berkoff - Sins

Steven Berkoff - Sins

A very slow series, stretching credibility as the children not only manage to get past two Nazi guards, but also capture their weapons and kill them.

Steven Berkoff - Sins

Steven Berkoff - Sins

Collins also marries a composer Eric Hovland, played by Gene Kelly, who shortly after is murdered.

Steven Berkoff - Sins

Steven Berkoff - Sins

Steven Berkoff - Sins

Steven Berkoff - Sins

Directed by Douglas Hickox. Berkoff worked with Dalton again twenty years later in The Tourist.

Berkoff is good as the Nazi "I only did my duty as a good soldier". Collins would later appear in Berkoff´s filming of Decadence.

Steven Berkoff - Sins - Nazi officer

'Sins isn't improbable or unlikely; it's something grander than that: preposterous, say, or absurd. At the same time it's not really about what it's supposed to be about; it's really about Joan Collins and her Valentino clothes. On Sins, a seven-hour, three-part mini-series, they wear one another… Sins isn't good, great or uplifting television; it's just television” (John Corry, New York Times, 31 Jan 1986).

The cinematographer was Jean Tournier and the editor was Michael Brown.

All images from the DVD of the film.






click arrows for more pages

click for previous page click for index click for next page


home plays overview hot news films tv photos download shop discussion best scene study

all the sites

www.iainfisher.com / send mail / © 2001-2023 Iain Fisher