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Bagdad Cafe [1988] [DVD]

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CCH Pounder (Actor), Marianne Sägebrecht (Actor), Percy Adlon (Director) Rated: Suitable for 12 years and over Format: DVD
4.4 out of 5 stars 50 customer reviews
2 new from £23.56 1 used from £40.73

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Product details

  • Actors: CCH Pounder, Marianne Sägebrecht, Jack Palance
  • Directors: Percy Adlon
  • Format: PAL
  • Language: German, English
  • Subtitles: German, English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.78:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 12
  • Studio: Arrow
  • DVD Release Date: 11 May 2002
  • Run Time: 87 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000063BLS
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 33,349 in DVD & Blu-ray (See Top 100 in DVD & Blu-ray)

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Product Description

A fat Bavarian tourist (Marianne Sagebrecht) is dumped by her husband in the Arizona Desert and arrives, on foot and overdressed, at a truck-stop called the Bagdad Cafe. There she finds friendship with the initially irritable black owner (CCH Pounder) and something like romance with the resident weirdo artist (Jack Palance). The film was made into a television series with Whoopi Goldberg in the CCH Pounder role.

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsBlossoms in the Desert
By Peter Scott-presland on 27 Jan. 2009
Format: DVD
This is a movie you will either love or hate. If you are looking for plot, action or realism, don't go there. If you love Frank Capra and "It's a Wonderful Life", this movie is for you. Percy Adlon is a German indie director with a strange sense of humour (well, he is German after all) but a warm feeling for humanity and its potential.

A German couple quarrel in the desert, leaving the wife Jasmin (Marianne Sagerbrecht) stranded; she staggers to the run-down Bagdad Cafe by the highway, checks into the sleazy motel, and proceeds to change the lives of the dead-end no-hopers who are washed up there. Chief among these is the sour Brenda (CCH Pounder), who runs the cafe and drags her feckless husband, dreamy son and flighty daughter in her wake. More than that would be unfair to say, except to indicate that Magic is important to the minimal plot, and Magic is the business of the film. At one point a character says, "The magic has gone," and that's true both literally and metaphorically.

The performances have been criticised elsewhere here, but I see nothing wrong with them at all. Perhaps more importantly, everyone looks perfect for their parts, with the exception of Jack Palance who is under-used.

For the first 20 minutes or so I was frustrated by the jumpy, nudging directorial style which seemed to be trying to say that the movies was funnier than it actually was. In truth it's a bit of a slow burn, but patience is rewarded as soon as you allow yourself to be drawn towards these oddballs.

Much is unexplained. Why does Marianne decide to stay here? Why is Brenda's husband always watching through binoculars from a nearby hillside? How come Marianne's husband never comes looking for her?Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starstotally magic
By A Customer on 31 Aug. 2003
Format: DVD Verified Purchase
Absolutely wonderful movie, what a great surprise. Don't be misled by the title! Delightful, simple yet profound, moving story! Oddly stunning visually with a great soundtrack.
No clues. just watch it and enjoy. It will leave you with a warm tingling feeling and totally satisfied that you have discovered a simple masterpiece. One to watch with a bunch of friends... what i did last night and i'm buying it now with the soundtrack as a gift. xx Z
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4.0 out of 5 starsDelightfully quirky piece of whimsy
By Chris Jones on 30 Dec. 2008
Format: DVD
I got this film as a newspaper freebie ages ago, and knew nothing about it (other than that it was supposed to be good) before sticking it in the DVD player for the first time tonight.

And, I have to say, I enjoyed it immensely. No, it's not one of those films where the acting is of such outstanding class, or the story so powerful that you feel that you've experienced something completely earth-shattering.

Indeed, there isn't a great deal to the story - and it's a shame that some of the other reviews have revealed as much as they have - but the depth of the story isn't really the point. Rather, the point is that the story is very far from the usual "gas station in the middle of nowhere" one.

No, it is different, quirky, well-acted, and very watchable. And it left me with a feel-good glow.

Would I pay full price for it? Probably not.

Am I glad that I have it in my collection? A definite yes.
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5.0 out of 5 starsunusual desert drama with a big heart
By schumann_bg TOP 50 REVIEWER on 18 Oct. 2014
Format: DVD Verified Purchase
Marianne Sagebrecht was a big star for a short time, thanks to this film and Rosalie Goes Shopping, also directed by Percy Adlon, and a previous one called Sugarbaby made in German and therefore less widely seen. She has a remarkable personal charm that is really at the centre of this amiable film, although all the performances are very good. The problem with this kind of material, which is basically "feel-good' but dressed up with more arty credentials, is how to avoid its sweetness becoming all too much. This is probably what led Adlon to make the opening part so long. Two women, both splitting from husbands acrimoniously, find themselves in the same space in the desert truck-stop and motel, where the German Jasmin feels miserable and feisty Brenda becomes all but unbearable. CCH Pounder does well in this role, but there is a lot of shouting from her in the earlier part of the film, which sets up a jarring note. This grounds the film in a certain emotional realism, as she has the failing cafe to cope with alone, plus two teenage children and the baby of one of these. Adlon counts on the magic arriving and lifting the viewer, like the characters, as if suddenly caught in the middle of a double rainbow. And it really does work, so that by the end, the magic show is totally joyous. The attention to colour and texture in the shots is consistently magical and plays up the fairy-tale element of the film. Jack Palance is pretty amazing too - what a face, what ageless charm and vitality he brings to an admittedly slim role. In the end, though, it is Sagebrecht's unique appeal that is perhaps most memorable, offset by a number of performances that are ultimately irresistible, and a marvellous open-hearted sense of a political message in there somewhere that never becomes too concrete or heavy.
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3.0 out of 5 stars"Too much harmony"
By Trevor Willsmer HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWER on 7 Nov. 2006
Format: DVD
Bagdad Cafe aka Out of Rosenheim is a German film although it's set in the Mojave Desert with only two Germans in the cast. In a way it's a distant relation of the wave of 70s German independent films starring faded American stars or directors (think Wim Wenders' work with Nicholas Ray and Dennis Hopper for an example) with a touch of magical realism thrown into the comic mix. A big hit in its day, time has been less kind to it and it veers more towards the irritating and overdrawn than the charming as it progresses. The major problem is the slightness of the material, with Marianne Sagebracht's displaced German housefrau doing an underplayed Mary Poppins act on the miserable and worn out employees and hangers on around the dilapidated roadside cafe and motel she finds herself in. Thanks to an open heart, a talent for housework and a box of magic tricks, she turns it into a burgeoning cabaret truckstop venue, bringing out the best in everyone around her (well, except one who leaves because there's "too much harmony.").

Unfortunately, this transformation is very long in coming and less than convincing when it does, and en route Percy Adlon doesn't offer enough development to justify the overlong running time. In fact, the characters are pretty thin all round - a frighteningly genial Jack Palance prowls around in the kind of leather and snakeskin wardrobe that creaks more than he does but is never really given much to do beyond prowling and painting, while CCH Pounder spends so much of the movie as a spectacularly unpleasant and increasingly less credible total misery that you wonder why the hell Sagebracht sticks around. Too many scenes outstay their welcome or simply go over the same ground, and the constant use of the same mournful song over almost every scene regardless of mood gets beyond grating.

It has its moments and its heart is in the right place, but a sharper script and a tighter running time would have made a world of difference.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

nice film

Published 2 months ago by Steven Finnis
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

a wonderfully gentle movie. Quirky.

Published 2 months ago by Neater
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat Film - It must be seen!

This film is really wonderful! I first watched it at the Electric cinema in Portobello Road longer than I can remember but always thought about it so when the chance to get the DVD... Read more

Published 2 months ago by rheailia
2.0 out of 5 starsTwo Stars

Sound was low couldn't use it second time it's pity

Published 3 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Great Value, Swift Delivery, Many Thanks.

Published 5 months ago by E.M.S
2.0 out of 5 starsTwo Stars

strange film, right from the start, i knew it was going to be hard work

Published 5 months ago by john agar
4.0 out of 5 starsWell worth watching.

I watched this film on TV many years ago and have been searching for a DVD ever since. Really enjoyable if you ignore the silly ending.

Published 6 months ago by Alec F
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Everything in order.

Published 8 months ago by Alina Wachala
5.0 out of 5 starsA happy life is where you find it!

An unusual film that ticked all the boxes for me.

A German woman has a barnie (row) with her German husband in the American desert and he leaves her on the roadside to... Read more

Published 8 months ago by David R.
5.0 out of 5 starsDrink it in and enjoy

I watched this movie years ago (50 yr old male) and remembered really enjoying it. So I bought this DVD which cam quickly and played perfectly... Read more

Published 8 months ago by DR

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