Adlon started his professional career as an actor, became interested in radio work, was a narrator and editor of literature series and a presenter and voice-over actor in television for 10 years. In 1970, Adlon made his first
short film for Bavarian television, followed by more than 150
documentary films about art and the human condition. Adlon's first
feature film Céleste (1980) was about the relationship between the French writer
Marcel Proust and his cook
Céleste Albaret during the last years of Proust's life. In 1987 he directed
Bagdad Cafe, starring
Marianne Sägebrecht as a German tourist,
CCH Pounder as a motel and truck stop cafe owner in the
Mojave Desert, and
Jack Palance. Critically acclaimed,
Roger Ebert awarded the film 3½ out of 4 stars in his review, stating that "[Percy Adlon] is saying something in this movie about Europe and America, about the old and the new, about the edge of the desert as the edge of the American Dream" and that the charm of
Bagdad Cafe is that "every character and every moment is unanticipated, obscurely motivated, of uncertain meaning and vibrating with life". In 1989, Adlon directed
Rosalie Goes Shopping, starring Sägebrecht,
Brad Davis, and
Judge Reinhold, which was screened at the
1989 Cannes Film Festival. The film met mixed critical reviews, with
Deseret News describing it as "dark satire masquerading as bright comedy" and a comment on American
consumerism, while
Rita Kempley of
The Washington Post considered it to be "deficit of dramatic tension" and thought that Adlon's message was "scatterbrained". In 1991, Adlon directed
Salmonberries, a picture starring
k.d. lang as Kotzebue, an orphaned Eskimo and young woman of androgynous appearance who has a lesbian relationship with an East German widowed librarian. The film was generally well-received, with Kevin Thomas of the
L.A. Times describing it as "endearing, remarkably assured and stunning-looking" and noted that Adlon with sensitivity "raises crucial questions of cultural and sexual identity", though
Janet Maslin of
The New York Times called it a "halting, awkward effort" with "stilted direction" and "sharp camera angles, arty editing". In 1993, Adlon directed the film
Younger and Younger, starring
Donald Sutherland,
Brendan Fraser and
Lolita Davidovich. The film won Adlon the Silver Raven Award at the
Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival. Leonard Klady of
Variety considered it to be an "unusual human comedy", a family yarn which "spins out from its simple premise into fantasy, music, black comedy and innumerable offbeat digressions." Klady further noted that the film illustrated "Adlon's unique method of tackling everyday life", which has "ironically been the greatest strength and most problematic aspect to his commercial appeal". In 1997, Adlon co-produced
Eat Your Heart Out, a romantic comedy film filmed in
Venice Beach, California, which was directed by his son, . Adlon co-directed his final picture,
Mahler on the Couch (2010) with his son Felix, a period film about an affair between
Alma Mahler and
Walter Gropius, and the subsequent psychoanalysis of Mahler's husband
Gustav Mahler by
Sigmund Freud. In a review for
The Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt wrote that the film "manages to pose a serious, intimate study in obsessive jealousy while, like a gaga celebrity hunter, bumping into just about everybody who's anybody in Viennese society circa 1910... The film's great gift, though, is Romaner... She fully inhabits the role of this complex personality whose passion for love and art collides with her role of wife and mother." ==Personal life==