Berlin Police Spurn Tom Cruise

[Baldy]

Tom Cruise is due to play German WWII resistance hero Claus von Stauffenberg, but he is finding it increasingly difficult to secure rights to shoot at the original locations. Now the police have refused to let him use one of their properties.
Tom Cruise may have bought a villa in Berlin, but the German capital is not proving to be a very welcoming host.



You might think the city would be delighted that a Hollywood superstar wanted to make a film about the German resistance, but not, it seems, if that star is Tom Cruise, a well-known Scientologist.

Cruise is to star as Claus von Stauffenberg, who planned an assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944 and was executed after the plot failed. The film, "Valkyrie," is to start shooting soon, but things are not going according to plan for the star.

The latest setback for the toothsome heartthrob is the refusal of the Berlin Police Department to allow him to shoot at one of their properties in the city. The police had "intensively examined the application and have come to the conclusion that the adverse effects for the services that operate on the premises would be so serious that we cannot approve the application," a police spokesman told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung.

This is the second key location to have denied the star. Cruise has already been refused permission to shoot at the Bendlerblock , a government building in central Berlin, where Stauffenberg hatched the July 20 plot and where he and several others were executed after it failed.

At first the Berlin studio shooting the film dismissed earlier comments by the German Defence Ministry that it could not shoot at the location, saying it had the necessary permit. But the Finance Ministry has the final word and on Monday it confirmed that it was "no."

Ministry spokesman Stefan Olbermann insisted that the decision had nothing to do with Scientology. He explained to Reuters that another film had been shot at the Bendlerblock, which is also a memorial site, and that experience had led the ministry to bar all film shoots on the site. "We welcome the fact that such a film is being made," Olbermann said -- before, however, adding, "We don't think it would be appropriate to film there."

There is nevertheless a clear distrust of Cruise's religious beliefs in Germany. While Scientology is accepted as a religion in the United States, in Germany it is seen as a money-making cult which puts pressure on defectors and is involved in dubious real estate deals.

Stauffenberg's son Berthold, now 72, recently voiced his concerns (more...) about Cruise playing his heroic father. "I don't like the idea of an avowed Scientologist playing the role of my father," he said in remarks to the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

The storm in Germany about the film could have a negative impact on Berlin's growing reputation as a film location. The American press has reacted harshly to the Germany's frosty welcome for one of their own. "We say, what better way to recall the Nazi era than by denying a man work due to his beliefs," commented the Philadelphia Daily News.

And there has been some criticism from closer to home too. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the German director of the Oscar-winning film "The Lives of Others," criticized the "circus" surrounding the filming permits in Berlin.

"Just as Stauffenberg and his accomplices were still regarded as un-German traitors of the fatherland after the war, so today the biggest star of the victorious nation is not good enough to play our hero Stauffenberg if the star's personal beliefs don't match the current mood in Germany," he writes in Tuesday's edition of the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. And he sees the film as a big opportunity for Germany itself, writing that Cruise playing Stauffenberg "would do more to improve Germany's image than 10 soccer World Cups."

smd/dpa/reuters

[kellyhound]

Think we have that already covered Baldy
http://www.theliberalblogger.com/for...-germany-4921/

[Baldy]

Originally Posted by kellyhound

Think we have that already covered Baldy
http://www.theliberalblogger.com/for...-germany-4921/

..this one is more actual,now even the police is against him..before it was only the son and the defence ministry....

The latest setback for the toothsome heartthrob is the refusal of the Berlin Police Department to allow him to shoot at one of their properties in the city. The police had "intensively examined the application and have come to the conclusion that the adverse effects for the services that operate on the premises would be so serious that we cannot approve the application," a police spokesman told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung

[wally246]

[realist]

"We say, what better way to recall the nazi era than by denying a man work due to his beliefs" commented the Phelidelphia News.

FUCK YOU Pheledelphia News! Their reason for denying him is because the authorites believe that building and land holds a sacred value to the people and ancestors of Germany. They made it clear that 'no filming' from anyone is to be permitted, not just Tom Cruise. Why are they twisting this into some conspiracy against a scientologist? Man, I hate journalists with political agendas!

[Worrymon]

Originally Posted by realist

"We say, what better way to recall the nazi era than by denying a man work due to his beliefs" commented the Phelidelphia News.

FUCK YOU Pheledelphia News! Their reason for denying him is because the authorites believe that building and land holds a sacred value to the people and ancestors of Germany. They made it clear that 'no filming' from anyone is to be permitted, not just Tom Cruise. Why are they twisting this into some conspiracy against a scientologist? Man, I hate journalists with political agendas!

I second that Fuck You to the Philadelphia news source due to the fact that Cruise is involved in a dangerous cult.

I fully support Germany's (and most of Europe's) decision to not give that group the status of a religion because of a) their structure which only allows knowledge of the practices of the organization to people who pay them; b) their 'division' into a corporation and a church; c) the violent nature in which they attempt to prevent people from leaving their organization and d) the violent nature in which they attack people who are critical of their organization.