tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post5365160608759419224..comments2023-11-03T11:37:13.579-04:00Comments on Something Old, Nothing New: The German Movie Musical, Circa 1961Jaime J. Weinmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15128500411119962998noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-91527748604050438232010-08-07T02:07:10.121-04:002010-08-07T02:07:10.121-04:00I used to go to a German language summer camp wher...I used to go to a German language summer camp where we would learn dancing much like the guys in lederhosen were doing in that clip. They have a repertoire of intentionally silly and absurd moves that are concatenated together, like the "AutoStoppfen" which was a sort of hitchhiker's thumb gesture.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17347494426830373650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-26832035019315409512010-06-09T10:46:17.950-04:002010-06-09T10:46:17.950-04:00kollo was a famous actor in Germany, I remember my...kollo was a famous actor in Germany, I remember my grandma saw a lot of his old movies and was always happy.ebook leserhttp://ebook-blog.org/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-8300208078679750732010-05-28T14:00:33.610-04:002010-05-28T14:00:33.610-04:00You've got to track down EAST SIDE STORY (1997...You've got to track down EAST SIDE STORY (1997) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119040/ which is a fun documentary on Iron Curtain musicals, including a number of East German films.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16302426999203919107noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-67277896988755053622010-05-26T16:12:47.718-04:002010-05-26T16:12:47.718-04:00Whatever other shortcomings these films may have h...Whatever other shortcomings these films may have had, the technical aspects are outstanding. Still frames from these videos look like they were shot yesterday. The definition is astounding, not all grainy like American CinemaScope. The audio is pristine. There has to be some digital restoration at work here, but I'd believe it if you said there wasn't. The West Germans prided themselves on meticulous technical perfection. They built the best cameras, lenses, film, microphones... everything. <br /><br />Unfortunately, all that technical perfection may serve to point out the performance shortcomings even more. There's no doubt it's all lip synced, and there seems to be little attempt to disguise it. By the way, some of the orchestration sounds like Bert Kaempfert. <br /><br />That 1931 clip is incredible. That was one big long massive recording session, dozens of performers, done in real time. And the payoff at the end is worth it.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12098471743485897147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-74653275960877404252010-05-25T17:18:55.424-04:002010-05-25T17:18:55.424-04:00And to see how poor German musicals of the fifties...And to see how poor German musicals of the fifties were, compare the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-SM0wjITTU" rel="nofollow">remade version</a> of "Das gibt's nur einmal" with the Lilian Harvey version. The cast of hundreds and the coach journey through the centre of town has been replaced by the minimum possible number of extras and a trip along a back alley in the midle of nowhere.Jimnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-42454880581459223782010-05-25T17:12:37.617-04:002010-05-25T17:12:37.617-04:00Oh, and re the lederhosen, the other big genre of ...Oh, and re the lederhosen, the other big genre of German made films in the immediate post war years was the <a href="http://www.goethe.de/kue/flm/dos/hei/en165229.htm" rel="nofollow">heimat films</a>, rural fantasies set in mythical looking woodland villages near the mountains and packed with shots of men in leather shorts slapping each other. Most are unwatchable nowadays, as are the seventies soft porn spoofs based thereon. If you've ever been unfortunate as to sit through one of the British "Confessions of ..... " films you'll know what to expect.Jimnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-56476850861492101162010-05-25T16:39:31.915-04:002010-05-25T16:39:31.915-04:00German musicals of the fifties and sixties are gre...German musicals of the fifties and sixties are great in the same way that Elvis and Frankie Avalon musicals are great; they just tried to produce something light and fun without getting remotely political. You forget most of the stuff within an hour or two, but its great while it lasts. Here are a few names to get you started:<br /><br />The biggest star in German musicals is Peter Alexander who made dozens of the things, all perfectly adequate and lots of fun, but there's no defining piece that you ought to see. Just spend an hour going through some of his stuff on YouTube.<br /><br />Peter Kraus was described as the German Elvis, but had neither the early rebellious period not the Vegas years, and was most of his career the sort of nice boy that mums approved of.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.gusbackus.de/" rel="nofollow">Gus Backus</a> has the most interesting story. He was (well still is) an American. While in the army he sang for a while with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del-Vikings" rel="nofollow">Del Vikings</a> until he was transferred to Germany where he somehow found his way into films and became a pop-star. After leaving the army he stayed on in Germany for a while before returning to the US where he worked in the Texan oilfields before deciding that his German life was far nicer and returning there. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiETayG5Hgc" rel="nofollow">This</a> is quite a cute number from the film Das haben die Madchen gern (that's what girls like), a film with no comprehensible plot whatsoever but lots of sweet songs.<br /><br />Top European stars of that time tended to appear in films in lots of different countries, e.g. Swedish star Lill Babs (last in the news for getting Bill Murray drunk and sending him into the centre of Stockholm in a golf cart). A mother at fifteen, she only became a singer subsequently and is still loved in Sweden. She appeared in some German films with and without her one-time boyfriend Peter Kraus, but I like the songs from Swedish musical "Pang i bygget" (Google translates that as Fawlty Towers) that I've found on You Tube. Try <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBGTEAXbj_0" rel="nofollow">Ko</a> or <a rel="nofollow">Pop i Topp</a> for starters.<br /><br />But if you want to go back to a time when German musicals had some artistic quality then you have to look all the way back to what ufa were producing in the early thirties. Exhibit one has to be the incredible <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5cWBv9gm6Q" rel="nofollow">Der Kongress tanzt</a> of 1931, made in German, French and English simultaneously, with Lilian Harvey able to sound like a native in all three languages. Was Hollywoood even capable of doing the tracking shot at the start of the song (about 2 1/2 minutes in)? Or for another Lilian Harvey clip, here's a scene from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcI-pX_NDYs" rel="nofollow">Einbrecher</a> complete with a very rare film performance of Sidney Bechet (watch out - parts of that make blackface seem the model of racial sensitivity). The rise of the Nazis destroyed a lot of that creativity, and German cinema spent much of the fifties making weak remakes of those gems of the twenties and thirties.Jimnoreply@blogger.com