Sirk In Germany 1934-1935

[GlacierTuba]

April! April! from Disc 1 of the Dirk Benedict in Germany set.

Oh my God! This film was class. Just so utterly stupid and funny. I loved it!

A fairly simple tale of a family of dicks, who everyone pretends to admire but behind their backs think they are all up their own arse, hold a dinner party so their daughter who looks like Bette Midler, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe and Molly Ringwald all at the same time and loves choux pastry can sing terrible opera songs in front of everyone and impress her boyfriend who sells flour and looks like Martin from Game On.

Anyway. Two lads at the party get bored so decide to get absolutely BUCKLED on trays of champagne (literally taking entire trays of champagne for themselves). One of them decides to play a prank on the family as it dawns on him the day of the party is April Fools Day.

Cue an April Fools Day prank that gets more and more out of hand as each minute of the film ticks by. The speed of the train wreck of the joke spiralling out of control and the pissed up lad at the party coming to the realisation that its now become a juggernaut that he simply cannot stop is delivered at such a blistering pace the viewer nearly cannot keep up.

It just goes on and on, getting more elaborate and ludicrous until a coincidence occurs that changes everything. I shall say no more as to not ruin it for you. I will note though, keep an eye out for two scenes near the factory tour. One where daughter Mirna runs out of the sitting room and slips on a rug before bolting upstairs to her room. Im almost certain that's a genuine mistake that was left in because she almost flattens herself but manages to stay upright and keeps the scene going.

Another scene during the factory tour. Watch for the 'prince' and the father arguing over pasta. Look at the old fella in the background who is ABSOLUTELY WETTING HIMSELF! I'm almost certain that must have been left in too. You can see him trying to stop himself laughing too. It just adds to the comedy of the scene. Too funny!

Also, the bloke that looks like Martin out of Game On getting ABSOLUTELY RUBBERED in the pub before arguing over a table with the father is brilliant. The way he and Thilde become protective over vases is just so funny! Its not what they say its just their mannerisms about how the vase needs protecting is just so comical!

I loved this little film. It's so stupid because you wonder how utterly dense it is and the people are so up themselves you cannot help but shake your head and just laugh at it all. Its really well delivered and directed. As already said, this film moves at such speed you rarely get a moment to pause for breath.

Looking forward now to the rest of the shorts on Disc 1 and then tucking in to Disc 2 for more! Brilliant blind buy so far. Delighted with it. This release, for me at least, is a winner and a keeper!

Highly recommended!



The Rest of Disc 1:

Polished off Disc 1 of the Dirk Benedict set. April! April! is the main feature, the rest of the disc is 3 short films made between 1934 and 1935. I think all of these were made shortly (excuse pun) before April! April! though.

First film I watched was Three Times Before, which is an oddball film as it appears in two different versions here. It is a sound film but appears in both guises as silent because the audio track is considered long since lost.

What you get here are two silent versions, one with intertitles made by UFA, which the viewing notes state is due to them looking to perhaps issue the film in both silent and sound versions for cinema release. The second version is silent but with dialogue subtitled throughout using text found on a German censor card.

Of the two versions I prefer the latter. I don't think the intertitles work as the gaps between dialogue are far too long. Its an interesting idea though to appeal to both markets before silent films would become historical relics (or in most cases, thrown in the bin, which is such a shame).

Three Times Before is a very simple short comedy film that has some lovely comic touches. The fella dressed as a nonce in a picnic blanket creeped me out though and will haunt my dreams for years to come. Also, what is it with films of this era and houses having rooms with such HUGE doors? You'd need a lockkeeper to open and close some of them!


The Imaginary Invalid

This is another short film, this time about a hypochondriac obsessed with enemas (no, really) who gets swindled by a con artist dressed like Captain Hook, and whose daughter fancies the local quack - who is excellent at opera for some reason - and is instead forced in to an arranged marriage with a wet blanket with the IQ of a bubble in an Aero bar, but the musical gift of Mozart.

Sadly the original negatives are also considered lost but the film was able to be reconstructed from a bungled copy print. More about this is mentioned on title cards before the film starts.

I didn't think I'd enjoy this one at first, as the opening 5 to 10 minutes are a bit of a "where's this going?" vibe. It then gets going and you can't help but enjoy the story of the great swindle unfolding to the climax. Like Three Times Before, you can see where Sirk was developing comedy chops. Nice little film this one, and a welcome time period change to the other films on this disc.


Two Greyhounds

A final short film to round off the disc, and this is probably the strongest of the three. This bloke owns a business in the city, gets a bit peckish so goes to get some lunch. Two lads turn up for a job interview and misdirection and chaos ensues!

This one is an absolute BEAUT! Think of it as a condensed, quick fire April! April! but deliever at such incredible speed I swear I could see flames licking the disc tray of my UB820!

Its pure farce, but so much fun and essential viewing. Leave it, and the rest of the shorts until after the main feature. Think of them as a Milky Way bar, don't scoff them all and ruin the main course.

There are no extras for the shorts. The only extra is a commentary track for April! April! which I've not listened to yet but I will at some stage. Also worth mentioning the booklet, which is fine, but not anything spectacular in my opinion. Half of it is credits for each film in the set, then an essay on Douglas Sirk, which is interesting but the font is so small you need an electron microscope to read it. Bit of a missed opportunity here I think, probably because I love a good booklet and actually read them.

So that's Disc 1 done. On to Disc 2!


RESERVED THIS BIT FOR DRIVEL ABOUT DISC 2 WHEN I CAN BE ARSED TO WATCH IT

[GlacierTuba]

Watched:



Kicked off Disc 2 of the Dirk Benedict in Germany set with The Girl From Marsh Croft and Gordon Bennett if it wasn't an absolute STONKER of a film!

This one is a period piece that presents itself as a bit of a Cinderella meets Pretty Woman attempt, but it has an added twist element too it which will catch you off guard, sock you in the bollocks and leave you with an "I've just noticed my hand was gripping the armchair for the last 20 or so minutes" feeling come the finale of this fine tale.

Special shout out, props and maximum respect going out to wide-trouser-loving 94 year old stout-buttocked youngster (why did everyone up until the end of the 1950's look about 87 years older than they actually were?) Karsten, whose dad, is just an absolute sultan of epic proportions. 1935's Time Magazine person of the year nailed on surely?

There's a great alcohol-fuelled scene where wide-trousered Karsten gets absolutely hammered on cheap cider and schnapps chasers while listening to a woman that looks a good bit like Kirsten Dunst warble sketchy nautical-themed songs...while also harbouring a fondness for wide trousers. She has a penchant for necking schnapps neat too.

Its also the only time I think I've ever seen someone get glassed in a pub fight with a ship in a bottle. I suppose there's a first time for everything and this was it.

Anyway, get this one watched. Its a more serious, melodramatic tone in comparison to the farce-themed Disc One, but it doesn't matter a jot as we're off to a golden start with yet another slice of quality Dirk. I mean Sirk.

Oh, top tip, the bonus feature, an interview with Sheldon Hall titled Magnificent Obsessions, is very good. Don't watch it until AFTER you have watched all the films in the set as he is very spoiler-happy. I had to skip the last five minutes as I've not watched the final film in the set, Pillars Of Society. That's scheduled for tomorrow hopefully.

It also reminded me that the last time I recall coming across the name Sheldon it was a half hatched egg. In the comic book Orsons Farm. It appeared in Garfield comics about 30 years ago. The egg was also called Sheldon.

The mind does boggle...

[T4ffer]

There's another thread for this so called Smirk Bogarde set https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=380719

[GlacierTuba]

Originally Posted by T4ffer

There's another thread for this so called Smirk Bogarde set https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=380719

Yep, noticed it only today as it didn't come up in search the other day when I made the posts - I probably searched for Dirk instead of Sirk. Hopefully a mod can thread merge if that's a possibility. No worries.

Just to add from the other thread, someone had mentioned about Sirk making films during Nazi-era Germany.

The Sheldon Hall feature on disc two discusses this, bringing up some interesting information. Mostly around Sirk making the films pretty much under the radar, but in a way that the Nazi party didn't take issue with his output as it appeared to meet their ideology. Which apparently was not Sirks intention, ot to sympathise with, but because of it this allowed him to sneak out the back door to another country, eventually finding his way to the USA and the rest is history.

It is not to say his films in this set, or of this era were designed to meet the ideology, they weren't. Amazing how he got away with it really. There's a book from 1997 called Sirk on Sirk, which I am very keen to read now!

[GlacierTuba]

For completeness:

Watched:



Disc 2 was finally done and dusted with Pillars Of Society this evening. Now, this one is one of those films that is a bit misleading. It starts off a bit like a Western, before moving to a period piece which is all high tea dances, polite society and wide trousers.

I almost gave up on this one and dismissed it as a pile of old pants. The only highlights initially being a character in the film called Mr. Crap (no really, and it never got old either, I chuckled throughout ) and the tallest woman you've ever seen in your entire life at around 9 minutes in.

And then, in good old fashioned Sirk style, around mid way through the film, when all the tea has been drunk, all the pleasantries have been acknowledged and displayed, just when you are sliding on the floor in a gelatinous blob of boredom and think you have hit rock bottom...

Dirk Benedict delivers the hammer blow. The anvil smeared in semtex drops the Chaka Demus (and Pliers, of course) on your soul and blows it to smithereens...

From this point on, with everything you thought you knew just pure lies and scandal, Sirk delivers gut punch after gut punch, spreading the drama on thick like a bucket of Nutella over a brioche roll.

The film reaches its stormy climax with all the remaining budget thrown at it in all its nautical glory!

Its not to say this film is perfect. The opening is slow going and a real change from the rest of the films in this set so it'll take you a minute to get used to it. Also, the latter half of the film suffers from damage issues and varying quality but it is the best that is likely to ever be out there so I guess we should be thankful to have the complete film at all.

Pillars Of Society is a real Paddington 'hard stare' at the class system and sociopolitical issues but its done really well and finely acted.

One thing I couldn't get my head around though is why the son (who has a haircut that makes him look like he's just finished a reunion tour of British holiday parks with 90's boy band 911) has a sex swing in his room...

So, how would I rank the films? Its difficult because they are all so very good. Here's my attempt, but its not really definitive, there's little between them.

Main films:

1. April! April!
2. The Girl From Marsh Croft
3. Pillars Of Society

Shorts:

1. Two Greyhounds
2. The Imaginary Invalid
3. Three Times Before (Dialogue version)
4. Three Times Before (Intertitle version)


So that's it . That's the end of the Sirk In Germany set. An early candidate, in my very humble opinion, for release of the year. A real winner of a collection of films, I enjoyed them all!