The Paul Verhoeven Collection
TURKISH DELIGHT
SOLDIER OF ORANGE
THE FOURTH MAN
KEETJE TIPPEL
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS
PAUL VERHOEVEN, director of Orion's runaway hit ROBOCOP, is probably Holland's best-known film maker. All but two of his seven Dutch feature films have done tremendous business domestically. Verhoeven, born in 1938 in Amsterdam, started his career with a big budget medieval epic series for NOS-television in 1968 (FLORIS). Only three years later he smashed box office records with his feature film debut BUSINESS IS BUSINESS, the burlesque adventures of an Amsterdam window prostitute. This was followed by the all-time domestic record-holder TURKISH DELIGHT, which sold 3,3 million tickets in Holland alone, won an Academy Award nomination and was distributed worldwide theatrically by Columbia Pictures. Audiences also flocked to the 19th century chronicle of a Dutch country girl, KEETJE TIPPEL, the Golden Globe nominated World War II epic SOLDIER OF ORANGE (Survival Run) and the sad dreams of a small town youth gang, SPETTERS.....* ( scource: VARIETY, Vol.329, No. 13).
In the meantime, Verhoeven has become one of the most succesful European directors in Hollywood. His more recent films include the science fiction spectacle TOTAL RECALL, starring Arnold Schwartzenegger, the erotic thriller BASIC INSTINCT with Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone, the SciFi shocker STARSHIP TROOPERS, the frightening HOLLOW MAN, with Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue and his second World War II movie, BLACK BOOK.
The Dutch actor RUTGER HAUER has over the years succeeded in becoming a "Hollywood-Star", something rather rare for European actors. His career started with Paul Verhoeven's Academy Award nominated TURKISH DELIGHT in 1972 and continued with Verhoeven's 1974/5 production of KEETJE TIPPEL. It was again with a Verhoeven picture that Hauer became internationally known, when he starred in the 1978 production SOLDIER OF ORANGE (Survival Run). Since then, Rutger Hauer has made himself a name in numerous Hollywood productions, among them NIGHTHAWKS (with Sylvester Stallone, 1980), BLADE RUNNER (Ridley Scott, 1981), THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND (Pekinpah, 1983), LADYHAWK (Donner, 1985), WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE (Sherman, 1986) , THE HITCHER (Harmon, 1986), as well as the sci-fi thrillers WEDLOCK and SPLIT SECOND.
The producer ROB HOUWER, born in 1937, studied at the "Deutsche Institut für Film und Fernsehen" in Munich. He first came to attention with the short film DOG DAYS. Houwer's best known Dutch shorts: THE KEY (1961), APPLICATION, awarded the Silver Bear in Berlin 1964 and GIRLS OF HOLLAND (1967). He went on to produce feature films both in Holland as well as in Germany where he became an important contributor to the so called NEW GERMAN CINEMA. His Dutch productions include BUSINESS IS BUSINESS (1971) and the screen adaption of the Jan Wolkers novel TURKISH DELIGHT, which premiered in February 1973 and won him an Academy Award Nomination. This was followed by KEETJE TIPPEL (1975) and SOLDIER OF ORANGE (SURVIVAL RUN). Since then, Rob Houwer has produced numerous Dutch and international Films and has become probably the most important producer in Holland.