Secret Key Motion Pictures | Buy at Amazon | Review by Jonathan Plombon
Though the proliferation of bratwurst may forever outshine all of Germany's other contributions to history, it's not to say that the kraut-happy country has been empty of cultural additions. Its success in regrettably electing detrimental officials has set standards that were unmatched until recently, and its cinema, though mostly shunned by mainstream American audiences, has left its mark on knowledgeable film aficionados.
And some of the aficionados at Secret Key Motion Pictures, advocates of the overlooked, have restored four flicks of the German cleavage-busting variety for its two-disc, uproarious BAVARIAN SEX COMEDY COLLECTION.
It's no minor attempt, either. Accompanying the DVDs is a six-page booklet of in-depth liner notes, full-color stills, a rare lobby card, and a poster for RUN, VIRGIN, RUN. The author Michael Bowen sets the stage for any loaf uneducated in the history of sexy German comedies by teaching trivia regarding the films, the actors, and the crew (for example, did you know that Franz Josef Gottlieb, the director of BOTTOMS UP, later made a film about the pioneering Dutch gynecologist Theodoor Van de Velde?).
The actual features are transferred with only slight imperfections, such as when BOTTOMS UP is interrupted for a second with static, but that can be attributed to the source material and not Secret Key Motion Pictures' duplication process. Otherwise, the vibrant, usually flesh-colored tones of uninhibited actresses are left to your fully focused gawking.
This is marvelous, for without the care taken, a film like BOTTOMS UP (Aufder Alm, da gibt's koa SŸnd, 1974/U.S. 1977) the first film in the BAVARIAN SEX COMEDY COLLECTION might have remained an imdb.com footnote, a curiosity left to eighth-generation bootlegs.
BOTTOMS UP (which, when reissued in the UK, was renamed BOUNCING BOOBS) is a madcap heist caper in the tradition of the 1930s screwball comedy (with a new spin on the "screw" and "ball" part). The English title song professes the following: "I propose a toast / to our fellow men / faithful and true / except now and then" as spies, one of whom is named Sally (the heavily eye-shadowed Alena Penz, whose skintight, leopard-skin dress barley peels off her rear), chase Professor Solo (Walter Feuchtenberg) with the intention to steal microfilm containing the recipe to turn cow manure into gas.
Once the bumbling gas-station attendant Sandler (Alexander Grill) discovers the undeveloped recipe, a series of coincidences manage to tie Tino the town pervert (Rinaldo Talamonti), Sandler's niece Claudia (Eva Garden, about the only non-blonde actress in the film to shed her clothes), Claudia's love interest Lois (Jrgen Schilling), and Sandler's wife (Sissy Lwinger) into slapstick hilarity.
Within the first twelve minutes of the film, there's skinny dipping with Alena Penz, a joke about bestiality, and the phrase Bavarian bush uttered numerous times. As Tino and his pal (played by Erhard Weller, a 7 foot 4 inch man who once worked for the Krone Circus under the name of Bimbo) argue over how they'll eat without money, Tino remarks that "If things go as I plan, we'll soon be frolicking in that bush garden. And just look at all those Bavarian bushes!"
"Yeah," Erhard remarks. "But we can't eat those bushes."
"You'd be surprised," Tino answers.
The entire film advances on the promise of nudity with many of the jokes revolving around nonconsensual sex. One scene involves the waitress Zenzi (Joanna Jung, whose pigtails remain intact even when her skirt does not) who sneaks a glimpse at the two spies engaging in hanky-panky. A customer of the restaurant wanders in to the same room as Zenzi. With Zenzi hypnotically wiggling her rear as she peers into the next room, the customer makes a move on her, which she unmistakably rejects. He then pulls down her panties and has sex with her anyway. I'm assuming that was supposed to be a joke, although it's hard to tell nowadays.
In another scene, Lois, Claudia's apparent true-love interest, forcefully yanks Claudia's panties down in public while she struggles, physically fights, and looks legitimately uncomfortable. By this time in the feature, the biggest surprise coming from this scene is not the message conveyed, but that a female character is wearing panties, as most of them prance about sans skivvies in order to set up visual puns where their skirts lift up. And how does Claudia exact revenge? She flashes her behind to a crowd of men while dancing.
It's difficult to tie together a script containing dialog constructed solely for the sake of sexual innuendo with a plot about cow excrement, but Franz Josef Gottlieb manages it. However, most of the credit should be given to Dick the Brummer (as he's listed in the opening credits) and a group of uncredited voice-over actors who read off of his English translation. The result is an interpretation of the film which sometimes breaks the fourth wall and inserts self-aware commentary with plenty of embellishment
"Stop him, he's a sex fiend!" a man remarks.
"Isn't everyone in this movie?" another man answers.
Its paper-thin plot is elaborated on with twist and turns, none of which seem that consequential to anyone, because character growth is nonexistent. At the beginning of the film, Tino is the town pervert. At the end of the film, Tino is still the town pervert. This doesn't, however, make it any less hilarious and by the time the rape joke occurs, you'll be wondering about German sexual harassment laws while simultaneously drooling over the bevy of bare beauties, which is a level of irony you'd never expect from a movie with so many erection jokes.
The film is followed by I LIKE THE GIRLS WHO DO (Liehesjagd durch 7 Betten,1973), which details the plight of a young virgin named Thomas (Gnther Ziegler) whose uncle leaves him a large inheritance on the basis that he intimately ravage through seven of the late playboy's ex-girlfriends. Questions as to why the ex-girlfriends would agree to have relations with Thomas are answered by the clause that the women will receive a large gift in return. It seems reasonable enough. About as reasonable as a premise about an uncle leaving a large inheritance to his nephew if said nephew can have sex with seven of his past girlfriends.
The film begins rather well, with Alena Penz from BOTTOMS UP playing Thomas' wife, Sigrid, wearing nothing but an apron, and attempting to breast-feed a stupidly reluctant child. The domestic living arrangement is explained by Thomas who addresses the screen directly and instigates a flashback.
The credibility of the story is a little flimsy, not only in the aforementioned character motivation, but in the structure as some of Thomas' flashback contains situations that Thomas was not present to recall. It's difficult to understand how Thomas would know about his father comically molesting a woman in a clothing store after the scene clearly showed that he had just left.
Thomas prevails, topping every woman from the blonde film editor (Monica Marc) to a blonde new-age health guru (Gisela Schwartz). Through this promiscuousness, Thomas routinely bumps into the sun-shined blonde Sigrid. And as he's nearing the end of the week, a one-in-a-million chance places Sigrid and Thomas into a predicament that offends his moral ideals and risks ending the budding romance.
Less slapstick than the previous offering, I LIKE THE GIRLS WHO DO trots along at slower pace, and doesn't allow for many twists (until the final few minutes). Still, it does end with Sigrid and Thomas having sex in front of an infant, which should be factored into the evaluation of its quality.
The final film on the first disc, INN OF 1,000 SINS (Em Echter Hausfraufreund, 1975) is a melodrama set in the misadventure-a-moment, always comedic world of male prostitution. It initially stands apart from the other entries with its reversal of the subordinate and dominate gender roles displayed in the previous films, but concludes pretty much with the same misogynistic overtones.
Married-man and full-time hotel gigolo, Albert Hoover (Peter Hamm) utilizes his unique talents to satisfy the female guests. When one of his clients, neglected-wife Evelyn (Margaret Rose Keil), grows dependent on his services, Albert reevaluates his priorities. Is he the "meat" she labels him, or is he the traditional patriarchal figure to his wife Louise (gorgeously round farm-girl Eva Gross) and their two children?
Due to Kurt Bachmann's oddball writing style (or perhaps a severely cut-happy editor) where subplots are brought up and then discarded, weaknesses of the characters are not factored into the plot, and people seem so content with their lives that there's no conflict, the previous synopsis is the closest thing to a consistent story INN OF 1,000 SINS that the viewer will find.
Its structure is like a stream of consciousness from a thirty-something in a mid-life crisis who's required to write a screenplay based on his life for the Spice Channel. The first fifteen minutes are spent with Thomas visiting a psychiatrist for his meddling impotence and the indecision to marry the mother of his child. Once those fifteen minutes are up, so are his problems. Louise mounts him. They decided to tie the knot. And she's fine with him practicing prostitution. Theoretically, that's an entire movie, especially when compared to BOTTOMS UP, where the plot could be shortened to the following: guy misplaces microfilm.
Already rectifying the main conflict within the first act, INN OF 1,000 SINS flounders through the second act by oddly introducing new characters. Eventually the script settles on his relationship with Evelyn for a brief period, but because Albert's wife is happy with her husband's profession and Evelyn has yet to propose any hard feelings for Albert, the movie proceeds for more than twenty minutes with things just sort of happening.
In a scene that in no way contributes to the main narrative, Albert tells an anecdote about a customer who, during fellatio, bit off a little more than Albert wanted her to chew. The haunting act or any complex derived from it is never brought up again, much like the bosom fixation which is only brought up to make cracks about how milk stimulates his libido.
Within time, Evelyn catches Albert with his wife (whose bobbing bosom bounces ever so beautifully) and huffs off, vowing never to see him again. During which, Louise scolds the mistress for thinking that her husband's customers are anything more than just a paycheck to him. Albert, who by this point in the story has declared to live a normal life, endures a montage of recollections that includes the camera spinning around scenic shots, him driving down the road, and him having sex with Evelyn. It's surrealistically set to the soundtrack of a heartbeat and a drill.
With thirteen minutes left in the film, every reference to Evelyn is gone. She simply disappears. Then, as if to surprise the audience who has given up on continuity, she reemerges five minutes before the conclusion of the film. Turns out that the normal life Albert had been stating as his salvation isn't what he truly wants. He hungers for the monogamy and for the adultery, but he doesn't want to have sex with just any woman. He just wants Evelyn. Without consulting his wife, Albert asks his mistress for approval to be his exclusive client, which she grants. His wife, I guess, won't care, and her opinion is left to decide what time to open her dairy farm, which she purchases about fifteen minutes before the film ends.
Still, the film has its occasional exploitive shine to it. At one point, Albert channels his inner LAST TANGO IN PARIS and unexpectedly shoves butter on Evelyn's fanny. There's also Evelyn masturbating while she smears body lotion on her chest. And then there's the scene where Albert accidentally rapes the maid. The maid, after falling victim to a dark cellar, remarks, "I already have a boyfriend," which is in reference to running gag where the other men of the hotel spank her while she's changing linens. It sounds much better than it actually is.
The second disc's only feature, RUN, VIRGIN, RUN (Die Jungfrauen von Bumshausen, 1970) takes place in the fictional town of the appropriately named Fucklerhausen, where a southwest wind named the foehn reportedly invigorates the libidos of the weary, age-damaged husbands. The population of Fucklerhausen, which only years prior had been in jeopardy of extinction, is exploding.
However, the foehn is a product of the neglected wives' imagination and a local blacksmith, Michael (Joav Jasinski), who, while the husbands are inhaling the fresh air and stumbling through the woods, is busy impregnating every woman in town. As soon as Gaby (an extremely redheaded and blue-eyed Helga Tlle) arrives, she sets her sights on the Michael, and his desire to retire from being multiple-time father-of the-a-year candidate clashes with the housewives' desperateness.
It's confusion run amuck when Michael can't make his rounds, and tourists, such as the carefree Christine (Christine Kuon, whose ability to bend over in a short skirt should not be understated), threaten to expose the wind for what it is. The film ends in a error-filled crescendo at a hotel where several drunken guests unknowingly snuggle up with various other guests who are not their significant others. RUN, VIRGIN, RUN was made about a decade before the AIDS epidemic, but I'm sure the clap was around then. And I can only imagine what one of those husbands would say to his wife when he notices the discoloration between his legs.
More innocent than the other pictures, RUN, VIRGIN, RUN is the easiest to relate to as a modern analogy of the polygamist Mormon lifestyles. Fucklerhausen, much like the Warren Jeffs' compounds, is overrun by elderly men who take younger women as brides and wish to copulate with them while publicly denouncing aspects of the flesh.
Granted, RUN, VIRGIN, RUN takes a much more lighthearted approach to the subject matter, and the women are significantly more attractive, what with them baring bosoms and not looking like Warren Jeffs, but the film shares a frightening truth with today's Mormon reality. If Michael is the only father for an entire generation of Fucklerhausen tots, then there's a good chance that some of those tots will grow to reproduce with one another. What will occur in three decades? None of this is brought up, but there is a scene where two elderly gentlemen, clearly too old to stand the physical strain, attempt to change their children's diapers. It's really damn funny.
But RUN, VIRGIN, RUN still pales in comparison to BOTTOMS UP, whose perfection is cemented further with the viewing of the other inferior films in the collection. Put it this way, you can be a good basketball player, but you're probably not going to be Michael Jordan. And you're a good flick, RUN, VIRGIN, RUN, but you're not BOTTOMS UP.
The DVDs' extras include a wide array of trailers from Secret Key Motion Pictures, including TOPLESS TAPIOCA WRESTLING and THE HOUSE ON HOOTER HILL (which shows promise). There are also five rare radio spots for RUN, VRIGIN, RUN (some of which have virgin replaced with Virgina for the more conservative stations). And there's also a featurette where Misty Mundae takes a shower while the radio spots play in the background and some guy (Zack Snygo) peeks in on her.
While some of these films have been released prior to the BAVARIAN SEX COMEDY COLLECTION (RUN, VIRGIN, RUN was even packaged with 2069: A SEX ODYSSEY), it's a second opportunity at a bargain price to pick up over six hours of fun. Cows, beer, that part in INN OF 1,000 SINS where Albert gets a fishing lure stuck in his rear. It's concrete evidence that Germany has far more to offer than 1,500 different kinds of sausage it produces a year.
