Der Musterknabe

Germany has wrongly been denied to have great humour and good comedians - Germany, in fact, has a lot, it is just ignored, too confined due to language barriers (like the wonderful Michael Bully Herbig stuff) or more on the intelligent/satirical side (Loriot, Dieter Nuhr etc.). A great comedic tradition of Germany (and Austria) is the tradition of funny but also satirical (intelligent criticism in a funny/entertaining way) high school movies, like the ultimate classic 'The punch bowl' featuring the wonderful Heinz Ruehmann in 1944, the Hans(i) Kraus stuff from the 1960ies and 1970ies up until recent successes like the F* ju Goethe (Suck me Shakespeare - not a fitting translation) - series. And this one is another example and a very well done one. I can't and won't conceal that I am biased since I have always been a huge fan of the most excellent Peter Alexander (but who isn't a fan of "Peter the Great"!), and consider me very happy having been able to meet him in person as a child at one of his shows. Beside his Count Bobby-movies (sometimes cheesy but always cute and funny, and also starring Gunther Philipp and Bill Ramsay) this is one of his best movies, witty, humourous, with a lot of charm of course, and also featuring the wonderful Theo Lingen, Gunther Philipp and Cornelia Froboess and cute songs (with funny lyrics and word changes). Although 'The punch bowl' is absolute cult and the F* ju Goethe-stuff is hilarious, I guess this is my favorite back-to-highschool-movie. RIP, Peter Alexander, you were superb!