East Germany had a difficult relationship with musicals. As with Western audiences, the East German public enjoyed musicals and paid to go see them. The box office was good for nearly all the musicals DEFA made, but the art form is so inherently frivolous that it drove the more stodgy politicians crazy. Making fairytale films …
Category: Comedy
The Arctic Sea Calls
In case you ever wondered what the Little Rascals (Our Gang) would look like as an East German concept, The Arctic Sea Calls (Das Eismeer ruft) answers the question. It's the story of a band of spunky kids who take it upon themselves to hike from Prague to the Bering Strait in an attempt to …
Too Young for Love?
Too Young for Love? (Für die Liebe noch zu mager?) is a portrait of a girl on the cusp of womanhood. At the start of the film, our heroine Susanne (Simone von Zglinicki) is wide-eyed and still wet behind the ears. She works at a textile plant and is a model worker. Susanne has a …
Wolz – Life and Illusion of a German Anarchist
From the first frame of the opening credits, Wolz lets you know that it will be taking a lighthearted look at an otherwise serious subject. The theme song is typically German-sounding oompah march music, punctuated by gunshots. On paper, Wolz does not sound like material for humor at all. It follows the exploits of a …
Continue reading Wolz – Life and Illusion of a German Anarchist
When You’re Older, Dear Adam
Egon Günther’s 1965 comedy When You're Older, Dear Adam (Wenn du groß bist, lieber Adam) is a weird movie, made weirder still by the times in which it was made and the technique used to rebuild the film. The film tells the story of a boy who is given a magic flashlight by a swan. …
Ete and Ali
Ete and Ali (Ete und Ali) is essentially a road movie, with one important difference: no one actually goes anywhere. The film follows the misadventures of the two men named in the title. Having just finished their military service, neither is sure what to do next. Bernhard, ”Ete” to his friends, is a little guy. …
Driving School
Q: Why were there no bank robberies in East Germany? A: Because you had to wait twelve years for the getaway car. So goes the joke, poking fun at the rather astounding wait times for purchasing automobiles in the GDR. In East Germany, you basically had two choices when it came to purchasing a car: …
Love’s Confusion
Love’s Confusion (Verwirrung der Liebe) is a 1959 romantic comedy that is similar to the ones being made in Hollywood around the same time. The story centers around Dieter, a medical student at Humboldt University, and his girlfriend, Sonja, an art student at the Berlin-Weißensee Art Academy. The two plan to meet up at a …
The Second Life of Friedrich Wilhelm Georg Platow
1973 was an interesting year in DEFA’s history. It’s not as historically important as 1966, when a dozen films were either pulled or shot down while in production, and it lacks the prodigious output of 1961, which saw the release of twenty-five films.1 But if you are looking for a year that is representative of …
Continue reading The Second Life of Friedrich Wilhelm Georg Platow
The Man Who Replaced Grandma
The Man Who Replaced Grandma (Der Mann, der nach der Oma kam) belongs to the comedy of errors genre—specifically the sub-genre that finds comedy in the mistaken belief that someone is being unfaithful.1 Some classic Hollywood films have mined this vein for comedy, most notably Preston Sturges in his hilarious 1948 film, Unfaithfully Yours, as …
East German Cinema Blog 