5-episode series by Bernhard Sinkel
Thomas Mann's hero is not a common crook, and a "Hochstapler" is not only what would be called in English a confidence man and in French a chevalier d'industrie, a widespread social phenomenon in our country. As we have seen recently, this does not mean that somebody can’t be both an important person and a crook. BETA Film intended to make an ambitious European TV series and Mann's novel was perfect in every way. Set just before the end of the belle époque, it has European aristocrats and nouveau-riche cosmopolitans, bon viveurs, artists and luxury courtesans in metropolises of wealth, hotels, casinos, vaudeville and brothels. Ideal for a production that was intended for broadcast throughout Europe was the fact that the series required a multinational cast. I don’t know if the commercial result was satisfactory or if it helped that the role of the German Felix was played by the Englishman John Moulder-Brown, but I lived a wonderful experience during scouting and then shooting in the best hotels and restaurants in Europe just before they were renovated. We were even in time for the Museu Nacional de História Natural of Lisbon, which had not changed since 1861. On top of all this I had the chance to meet - and dress - Μagali Noël whom I hadn’t seen since Felini’s films. When as a schoolboy I first saw her her in 1959 in a film titled in Greece "Hot Blazing Flesh" (L'Île du bout du monde), it caused me an adolescent trauma. But there was still a positive development. At a moment when I had to transfer more rights to the production company, BETA bribed me by promising participation in my next film. They didn’t know that this would be Αrpa Colla and they gave me a lot of trouble, but the film was shot.