You know [Rutger Hauer] thought HE should have had Jürgen's part in THE E.P. (I read that). VOILA! INSTANT COMEDY! I mean, I know Jürgen Prochnow. I've watched Jürgen Prochnow, Jürgen Prochnow was a friend of mine, and Rutger, you're no Jürgen Prochnow.
REALLY, though, if you take away Jürgen's ASS-A-HOLIC performances, you've scarcely got a thing left to watch. DAS BOOT will live forever, I am convinced of it; one hundred years from now it will be watched, and admired, so he will always have that, but as I've said, I get good and fed up with thoughtless casting directors corralling him exclusively into villainy, as much as I love a good villain.
Can't recall the review, but someone said of THE ENGLISH PATIENT, that Jürgen was good, but not cast imaginatively, and I thought "Yay! You recognize that he has so much more to bring to the party, don't you!" Did I tell you what I read ages ago on one of those chatty-net things a discussion among a bunch of fans about various stuff (mostly comic-related films I think). One of them wondered if Jürgen was deceased already, (perish the thought), and how would he be remembered... Somebody said "He was the only reason a lot of people went to see THE ENGLISH PATIENT" and I applauded that too, because he is precisely the reason I went.
I didn't see EP initially because it was a Jürgen movie - didn't know who he was, didn't recognize him. Noticed him, though... oh, yes, I did. The day I got around to looking him up to see what he had been in besides DAS BOOT (which was some 3 years after EP came out), I almost fell over. THE ENGLISH PATIENT? Really? Well, he must have been the charming Nazi with the straight razor who was so good in That Scene, can't think who else he could have been. So I threw the tape in and found him. Well, I'll be hog-tied... there he is... being just fantastic in a teeny little role. And as my research had shown me that he'd been in billions of movies I'd never seen, I started running out to get them. One of the first I happened to see was HURRICANE SMITH, and I must say it was quite a shock, going from DAS BOOT to THE ENGLISH PATIENT to THAT.
Oh, okay - he's one of those WORKING actors. Cool. I can deal with it. Snort!
You know what, though... as I wasn't a "fan" at the time but merely trying to catch up a little to see if he was worth being a fan OF, he should get a medal for keeping me hooked. Awesome in the good movies, irresistably fun in the bad ones (and sometimes awesome there too, for that matter). I do like an actor you just can't lose with.