Sensation in San Remo

Cornelia Walden leads a double life. At day she is a prudish teacher in a school for girls, but at night she works as a singer in a nightclub. However, she tries everything to hide her other existence from the headmaster of school and from her family. She only has this night job to help her family with their money troubles. Soon we discover that everyone in this family has a part-time job, but no one knows about the other.

Matters start to get complicated when Cornelia falls in love with a famous composer & play boy and goes with him on tournee to the Italian Rivera, where the headmaster of her school also attends a conference. How much longer can she hide her other existence? In the end, of course, there will be a happy ending. Marika Roekk, a Hungarian actress, stars in this musical comedy of 1951, which is partially shot on location in San Remo. This film provides some light entertainment for fans of this genre. If you like Marika Roekk I also recommend "Nachts im Gruenen Kakadu"(1957) and "Frau meiner Traeume"(1944).

This film suffers to some extent from the lack of memorable tunes. The main rumba, which you get from the opening titles to the closing credits, played as a rumba, as a waltz, as a slow fox, and presented as a big production number with female choir, symphonic jazz orchestra and four harps, is an absolute brainwasher and not in a good sense. Marika Rökk, 37 at the time, plays the eldest daughter of a poor but respectable family, a school marm, who is leading a shocking double life - singing mediocre tunes in a half-empty small town night club. She's not that comfortable with the songs she has to sing in this film: by the early 50s she had developed into a respectable soubrette with quite a nice soprano (as demonstrated to good effect in "The Czardas Princess", released also in 1951). Singing the sensual pop tunes seems to be confusing to her, as sensuality (at least voice vise) was not her forte. She fares better as a dancer: even though some of the dances are basically remakes of her other routines, her big Charleston number at the end is incredibly funny and energetic, something only she was capable of carrying. And of course, yes, you get the obligatory Marika in drag, making a voluptuous and improbable boy; this time dancing with a very pretty but sadly rather underused Maria Litto, who can be glimpsed in some films of the era.

Watching this Marika Rökk - Georg Jakoby vehicle is like watching so many other films these two turned out in the 40s and early 50s. Everything is familiar: an independent woman who is at first reluctant to fall for the solid, manly, straight (in the comedy sense) leading man, but who nevertheless melts once in his arms, only to, for some strange reason, bid farewell to him towards the end of the film (always with tears in her eyes, while being admirably in control of her emotions), only to be re-united by a big musical revue in the last reel. Been there, done that. While not a bad film, one might find some better and more interesting films produced by this husband-wife team, notably of course "The Girl Of My Dreams", the 1944 blockbuster.

Very superfluous and light entertainment, where you can predict every word, gesture and action from the beginning to the happy end.