This is a weird one. "A Town Without Christmas" and "When Angels Come to Town," the CBS telefilms that featured venerable TV star Peter Falk as an angel who comes to Earth to save Christmas, have already been released on DVD, but only in Germany. The same goes for the other film in the trilogy, "Finding John Christmas."

Factor that in with another strange bit of Falk-related trivia -- the fact that he starred as himself in a pair of landmark German films in the late '80s and early '90s -- and it suggests that perhaps the actor has a sort of David Hasselhoff-like stardom specific to Germany.

It's also worth noting that he was also given an honorary knighthood by the Ministry of Culture in France -- the award was given to him by French megastar Gerard Depardieu. So perhaps Falk's just bigger in Europe.

Raised Jewish by his Polish and Russian parents, and later famous for starring as one of the most recognizable and well-liked policemen in TV history, Falk is a quintessential New Yorker. But perhaps it's his very American nature that makes him appealing to the rest of the world.

It certainly must have helped with his landing those two German films, 1987's "Wings of Desire" and its 1993 sequel, "Faraway! So Close!" Both were made by art-film legend Wim Wenders, who has shown an affinity for Americana in many of his films, most obviously in 1977's "The American Friend" and 1984's "Paris, Texas."

Interestingly, "Wings of Desire" and "Faraway! So Close!" are both about angels coming to Earth and watching over the humans who fascinate them -- one of whom is film star Peter Falk, who we learn is a former angel who gave it up to be human. Eight years later Falk would be back playing an angel getting involved in human affairs in 2001's "The Town Without Christmas," and again in its sequels "Finding John Christmas" in 2003 and in "When Angels Come to Town" in 2004.

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