Revenge of the Stolen Stars

Ulli Lommel was initially attached at one point to direct Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984),^[2] but after being passed on for another director he instead ended up shooting Revenge of the Stolen Stars.^[2]

Lommel was unsure about casting Klaus Kinski due to his difficult reputation, but after the latter's agent convinced Lommel that Kinski had "mellowed" and that he was "a different person now",^[2] he decided to meet with Kinski at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles and found him to be very pleasant,^[2] in contrast with Kinski's previous and notorious bouts of irascible and unstable behaviour. But when filming started, Kinski was very hard to work with and constantly complained about the lights and microphones and frequently asked to remove them,^[2] so eventually the crew only used a few soft lights and very small microphones in the Kinski scenes,^[2] which is the reason (according to Lommel) the sound quality changes so much between scenes.^[2]

Kinski also didn't want to sit on a chair when the camera crew wanted to shoot him from different angles, so continuity wasn't possible. Because of that Lommel decided to change Kinski's character to a ghost, which was a brilliant idea in Kinski's opinion;^[3][2] Kinski became so elated with Lommel's idea that he also shouted at the moment "Oh my god, you are a fucking genius!",^[2] and immediately told Lommel that he wouldn't work in the future with any other director than him, to which Lommel's reply was: "Yeah, right!".^[2]

Kinski drank heavily on set and at one point practically forced the entire crew to shoot almost thirty consecutive hours, so they could finally wrap up his scenes and be done with his involvement, which was another idea Lommel had suggested. Kinski was so happy with this that two days later he approached Lommel on a beach in Mexico (where an important part of the shooting took place) to show him his appreciation,^[2] telling the latter that he had a great time while they worked together, and praising his directing style, saying "you have so much imagination!".^[2] Lommel's half-soothing and half-ironical answer was: "Well thanks Klaus, that's very kind of you".^[2]

During the filming, Suzanna Love, the wife of the film's director Ulli Lommel, fell in love with Klaus Kinski. At the end of the film, the two ran away to his house. There Kinski tied up and kept a gun on the actress, who still managed to call her husband for help. Lommel showed up at Kinski's house with two bodyguards who hit him in the chin and freed the woman.^[4]

• Revenge of the Stolen Stars at IMDb