Germany maintains a list of movies that are not allowed to be shown in theaters or on television on the solemn holiday of Good Friday; the list at the link covers 1980 to 2015. Mostly horror and porn; lotta horror porn; some action and comedy as well. For a time, children’s films were automatically added to the list unless the studio paid the government for an exemption, which is how a 1960s version of Heidi is banned. Respekt.
Every year, German social media teems with bitching that theaters can only show Monty Python 364 days out of every year, but I checked: no theater in Munich showed Monty Python on any other day in April. This rule only covers “public showings”; you can you see anything you like in your own home on VHS, DVD, DVR, digital downloads, torrented files, and streaming services. My response to the both the list and the bitching is always a good healthy eyeroll.
I thought it would be fun to see something off the list this year, just for something to blog about. From the titles, I’d say about half these films should never be seen by any self-respecting human being ever. The other half was random and amusing. Gremlins is OK, but Gremlins II is not (TBF, Gremlins is a Christmas movie). The whole Police Academy franchise offends religious sensibilities, but Coppola’s Dracula–where the title character derives his supernatural abilities from cursing Jesus–doesn’t. Adam West’s Batman can’t be shown, but Christian Bale’s is allowed. Whom the gods would drive mad, they present a list of German laws and regulations.
Verbotene Filme!
The forbidden films I really wanted to see were the original two Ghostbusters and/or Top Gun; all of which were on Netflix for years, but not anymore. I do have Beerfest on DVD, but I am saving it for Independence Day. ‘Murica.
Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)
Netflix, original English
Extremely gruesome, but funny. Most important: the dog survives. Enjoyable, probably memorable.
Vacation (2015)
Netflix, original English
I have no idea how this sequel to the John Hughes/Harold Ramis/Chevy Chase classic got on the list…maybe the sorority house scene. Or the hot spring scene. I like Ed Helms, and the Albanian rental car was hilarious. Enjoyable but maybe not memorable.
Erlaubte Filme!
The government TV runs a lot of “family” programming over the four-day Easter weekend. The three Immenhof films were broadcast on Good Friday, but we saw them on Saturday. This series of three films is based on a book Mr Radish read as a child–we saw the second last year–about three girls who refugeed to their grandmother’s pony farm in West Germany after the war. Two sequels from the 1970s star Heidi Brühl as Dalli again, returning to the farm after twenty years away; two seasons of a series were shot in the 1990s, and a suspcious-sounding 2019 reboot exists. They’re in the Mediathek but I’m not going to watch them. The originals were very charming and that’s how I want to keep the characters in my head.
April 2023
Die Mädels vom Immenhof (1955)
ZDF Mediathek, original Deutsch
The farm is about to be auctioned off to pay the back taxes, oldest sister Angela is in love with Jochen, who owns a horse-vacation business down the road, and younger sisters Dicki and Dalli are obsessed with ponies. The area children do a lot of farm grunt work between riding, picnicking, and swimming in the pond. So many ponies! And a few cats.
Engelbert, the prissy, citified grandson of an acquaintance of Oma arrives on a train for a Kururlaub–fresh air, riding, country food. He’s spending most of his time with Dicki and Dalli, who don’t make him do any work, but also don’t defend him from the jibes of the locals. When he tires of their scorn, he grabs a shovel. One night, he braves a storm to rescue a badly injured foal; and as the baby recovers, he and Dalli fall into first love.
The farm is saved by the timely marriage of Angela to Jochen, who gives up the money he has been saving to expand his own business to pay the farm’s back taxes.
As I said about the second movie, it’s a sweet and funny capsule of a time that no longer exists.
We skipped Hochzeit auf Immenhof because we saw it just a year ago; what I didn’t realize at the time was that Margot, the young blonde with a rich father who marries Jochen at the end of this film, thus saving the farm from being auctioned off again, is the cousin of Engelbert. Angela died off-screen between the films. Bwoah.
Ferien auf Immenhof (1957)
ZDF Mediathek, original Deutsch
The story is the weakest of the three, but we’re here because we love Oma. And ponies.
The farm has been completely remodeled into a hotel, and now just needs guests. Dalli (now in love with Engelbert’s graphic artist friend Ralf), Dicki (now the object of Engelbert’s affections), and Engelbert marshal the local kids, who had established a pony circus in the second film, into parading the ponies into Lübeck to drum up some business. Ponies! Ponies in the city!! The young people from Immenhof meet an orphan boy, Fritzchen, and give him a free two-week stay.
The crowd scenes, which I assume were shot with normal Lübeckers, were fascinating. The people all look shabbier, more tired than in crowd scenes in American pictures of the same time period.
The first guests are some quirky characters and a hot young “modern” woman named Gisela, who spends a suspicious amount of time with Ralf, but the goal is a good rating from a travel advising company in Hamburg, and much of the comedy comes from misunderstandings about accomplishing this. And misbehaving ponies. Fritzchen is delighted and slides into everyone’s hearts–Oma knits him a sweater.
There is the requisite happy ending: Gisela was just offering Ralf a remote-work job making posters for the travel advising company, and they will give the hotel the highest recommendation. Immenhof is saved! But the ending was incomplete. We never learn if darling Fritzchen gets to stay on the farm, and we never learn if an injured fawn recovers. These things more important than Ralf!!!
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