Kari Von Fursten (Lauren Hutton) is a Nazi spy and femme fatale in the 1984 crime drama "Lassiter".
Kari Von Fursten lives in the German Embassy in London in 1939. The movie takes place in the weeks leading up to the beginning of World War II.
Fräulein Von Fursten is first seen when she is introduced as a courier for the Nazi’s who is going to be smuggling a shipment of diamonds out of England back to the fatherland. She is said to be a wild woman.
In the next scene Kari is in bed making love to a man as he lays on his back beneath her. Reaching down to the side of the bed she pulls a large spike out of the side of the mattress and stabs him in the back of the head killing him instantly. It turns out later that the man was a British spy trying to locate the jewels.
Nick Lassiter (Tom Selleck) is an American gentleman jewel thief living in London. Lassiter is arrested by the police after breaking into a London mansion.
British law enforcement and the FBI blackmail Lassiter into break into the German Embassy and stealing $10 million in Nazi diamonds from a German spy Kari Von Fursten.
Lassiter first has to locate the hiding place of the diamonds within the German embassy.
Going to a private casino, Lassiter askes to be introduced to the beautiful femme fatale. He charms her. He askes her out and upon her request, he then takes her to a back-alley boxing match in an old warehouse.
Everywhere Fräulein Kari goes her personal Gestapo bodyguard and driver Max Hofer (Warren Clarke) is always nearby. He is also believed to be her occasional lover.
At the boxing match blood splatters on her cheek and Fräulein Kari wipes it off with a finger and then licks her finger. She is also seen to be doing cocaine.
During the fight, Fräulein Kari feels up Lassiter’s leg. After the fight, she attempts to get Lassiter to set up a date between herself and the winner of the boxing match. The boxer’s manager won’t allow it. Von Fursten has a reputation for Sadism and Masochism and he doesn’t want his boxer hurt.
Von Fursten is very disappointed she then demands that Lassiter take her home. Lassiter is living with a beautiful English girl Sara Wells (Jane Seymour) declines and Kari bites his tongue when they share a kiss.
Lassiter is pressured to attempting to seduce Von Fursten. The two of them end up in the back of a car driven by Max Hofer, who is not pleased as he watches the pair carry on in the rear-view mirror. Hofer grows more and more angry but turns the mirror so he can see everything that is happening between Lassiter and his sometimes lover.
Lassiter finally does sleep with Fräulein Von Fursten, waiting until they are done making love and that she is asleep to try and find the diamonds. He breaks into her wall safe but finds only the Fräulein’s personal jewels. He has failed.
Later Lassiter sneaks back in wearing a black turtle neck sweater and black pants he steals the lesser diamonds and throws them in a courtyard. He then signals an accomplice who sets off a bomb to the front gate.
Kari, hearing the explosion and seeing that her personal diamonds have been taken from her safe checks the real diamonds which turn out to be hidden in a secret compartment under a bust of Hitler.
Lassiter then steals the diamonds. Kari catches him in the act, pulling a knife she attempts to stab him in the back and Lassiter turns and punches her in the face knocking her out cold.
Trivia[]
- The final plot twist of the story is partly based on the 1891 Sherlock Holmes adventure "A Scandal in Bohemia" when the great detective tricks a woman known as Irene Adler, who blackmailing the King of Bohemia into revealing where she is keeping her incriminating evidence against the king, by faking a fire.
- The movie is a sort of 1980s tribute to Film Noir movies. It has some of the elements of the more classic Film Noir movies. But was made at a time when World War II and the cold war with Russia were known to have been won so is missing some of the more desperate undertones of movies made in the 1940s and '50s.
- Lauren Hutton appeared as The Countess in the 1985 horror comedy film Once Bitten.
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