Unjustly forgotten erotic drama with Antonio Sabato and Doris Kunstmann
This Italian-German film by Ugo Liberatore was released in Italian cinemas on November 21, 1969. Unfortunately, in German-speaking countries it was only shown in cinemas in 2018 at the TERZA ViSIONE festival (festival for Italian genre films in Frankfurt am Main). It is open to speculation as to why, despite the participation of Artur Brauner's CCC film, it was not released in cinemas in German-speaking countries. It was expressly not due to a lack of quality.
The two night owls Christiane (Doris Kunstmann, born in Hamburg in 1944 and in those years in a relationship with director Ugo Liberatore) and Helga (Christiane Krüger, born in Hamburg in 1945 as the daughter of the future global star and GOLDEN GLOBE nominee Hardy Krüger) are already heavily drunk with their friends Fraternity friends Klaus (Roger Fritz, born in Mannheim in 1936) and Hans (Peter Kraus, born in Munich in 1939, yes Cornelia Froboess' RocknRoller!) are out and about in downtown Munich. At the gigantic construction site on Marienplatz, the bored Christiane provokes an unpleasant argument with an Italian construction worker, who is beaten up for no reason by her friends who rush over. Engineer Giorgio Marelli (Antonio Sabato, 1943-2021) intervenes and ends the argument. Both women are visibly impressed by the stunningly attractive Italian and flirt with him uninhibitedly, which of course doesn't please the two boys present at all. What is now beginning is like a tussle with prejudices on both sides. Despite their openly displayed contempt for all guest workers, both women get involved with the attractive Italian, who in turn uses his skills of seduction without considering the losses (Yvonne Ten Hoff in particular suffers from this as the slightly younger Liselotte). Giorgio allows himself to be guided too much by his prejudices against the seemingly arrogant Germans.
This very intelligent film allows two different cultures with their mutual clichés and prejudices to collide. Neither side comes out well. Well cast and very convincingly acted!
As a contemporary document, this film is also worth watching again (see it on YT under the Italian title "L uomo per fare l amore"). At the time of filming, the city of Munich was virtually being rebuilt for the 1972 Summer Olympics. The mega construction site for the subway station at Munich's Marienplatz is, so to speak, another main character in this film, which is well worth seeing and which urgently needs to be seen more by an interested audience.
