La femme de mes rêves

After the completion of an exhaustive schedule, a theater actress by the name of "Julia Koestner" (Marika Rokk) decides that she needs a break from her director (played by Georg Alexander) who continues to insist that she continue on with further performances. So, to remedy that situation, she hurriedly boards a train to put some distance between them but, as luck would have it, her luggage is left behind at the station. To make matters even worse, she mistakenly gets off the train during a brief stop and finds herself stranded in the middle of the night with nobody around for miles. Fortunately, she eventually finds an engineer station where two men named "Peter Groll" (Wolfgang Lukschy) and "Erwin Forster" (Walter Muller) provide her with a place to stay for the night. Not long afterward, however, her rather entitled personality begins to annoy Peter--and this creates problems for all concerned. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was an interesting film due in large part to the time and place in which it was made. As expected from a musical-comedy of this sort, there are several song-and-dance numbers which, to be quite honest, were all rather ordinary and needed the spectacular costumes and background scenery to really shine through. Likewise, for a romantic comedy, the chemistry between the leading actors was also somewhat subdued as well. Be that as it may, while certainly not on the same level as some of the better musicals produced by Hollywood, this film still had its moments, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

One of the most expensive projects of its time - between the 5 million RM of "Münchhausen" and 8,5 million RM of "Kolberg" - this film is worth its reputation. I do understand that it can be watched without subtitles, but having translated this film recently I urge you to find a subtitled version, or you'll miss most of its fun. The dialog is very snappy and sometimes even funny. But it's the musical numbers that really are the piece de resistance here, building an enormous Agfacolor alternative reality to the world that was devastated by the War. It's reported that the orderly Germans occasionally stampeded the fellow citizens trying to get a ticket - such was the enthusiasm as the film opened in the late summer of 1944. Rökk is not only a brilliant, acrobatic dancer and a passable comedienne, but also a good singer, starting the film in low cabaret-like voice and showing off her soubrette soprano towards the end. She always was on the stout side (she probably needed strong muscles to perform her acrobatics), but in this film she really looks good and elegant. Highly enjoyable piece of Nazi film-making without a trace of propaganda.

After the war this film (along with many other German musicals) was screened as a "trophy picture" in Moscow and the whole Soviet Union. Ironically, the words of Herr Göbbels became true: German film would march with the German army anywhere in the World. The army didn't make it, the film did. Even more: the grand finale, really a beautiful piece of film-making, made it to the syllabus of the course in the Soviet Film Institute, where it remained for a long time. In the greatest of all the Russian cult TV serials - The 17 Moments of Spring - there's a lengthy scene where the protagonist, the Soviet spy in the Nazi Germany, sits his way through this film for the 13th time. The voice over explains that he hated the film but was waiting for the appearance of a secret courier; nevertheless the fact that about 3 minutes of the screen time (eagerly watched in 1971 by about 200 million people) is used, to show one of the dance numbers in the finale, proves that The Girl Of My Dreams had been firmly established in the collective knowledge of the Soviet citizen one way or another.

This revue-film starts (appr. 9 minutes) and finishes (appr. 15 minutes) with entertaining revue-numbers, but between these the viewer has to deal with an extremely nondescript and tendentious love story (the woman dancer can only be acceptable to the engineer if she becomes the simple German Hausfrau). Moreover, Jacoby's direction is nondescript as well, as usual. Seeing the difference in style between the revue scenes and other scenes (in all his films) I always wondered whether he was helped with the revue scenes.

Here Marika Rökk dances better and livelier than in her other films; she is sometimes really good here, not only in the revue scenes, but also as the comedienne. The rest of the cast is boring and probably not helped by Jacoby's direction; even Grethe Weiser's contribution is poor. Jacob Tiedtke, however, as the recalcitrant theater visitor has a hilarious bit part.

Is already the story tendentious, the last revue number is not only of attractive design and with ditto choreography and music, but also a political message to top the tendency of the story: the revue moves from Germany via Japan, Italy and Spain back to Germany! A clear statement, indeed.

Further the film is noteworthy for its sexual hints, of which the most clear one is the reference made to blowing up by the engineer of hill number C. Both the dancer and the engineer study the map on which hill C is situated at the bottom. This is also the film that allegedly outraged Goebbels: one of the dresses of Rökk has a décolleté until her navel. Combined with sensual dancing, it was too much: the dress stayed, but the dancing was redone and toned down.

This was sort of a last hurrah for big-budget Nazi cinema, as unsurprisingly the failing war effort was draining resources for such frivolities. But it makes a big effort to provide a booster shot of escapism to audiences who were no doubt in desperate need of it by then. This is basically a German equivalent to a Betty Grable movie--a gaudy color extravaganza with a silly romantic comedy plot and some pretty lavish production numbers, plus of course excuses for the star to run around half-dressed. (Though that's still more dressed than Grable would have been.) Of course, the Hollywood version would be brassy, while this is more kitschy, with an operetta-ish rather than Broadway feel. (The popular female star Marika Romm indeed performed in many stage operettas after the war.)

The plot, involving a runaway stage star taken in by two mountain-tunnel engineers who become rivals for her love, is nothing special, with no great chemistry between the competent leads and routine comedy relief from supporting actors. What is worth looking at are the big numbers, which are well-sung and produced. But they're not really INTERESTING, in terms of ideas or choreography or anything else. It's weird to see some "novelty" bits incorporating "exotic" foreign music and costume motifs, given the Nazis' extreme notions of racial/cultural superiority. (For the same reason, it's also a little strange that none of the leading characters are blond.)

Anyway, this is a curio fascinating in historical terms, but no great find as entertainment--for all the high production polish on display, the material is innocuous and its execution lacks much personality. I'm sure it did take Germans' minds off the war for a couple hours. But it can't hold a candle to the better Hollywood screen musicals of the same era.

I watched this film out of curiosity more than anything else and several things bemused me:

1) Marika Rökk: Whilst one cannot doubt for one minute that she was fearless and acrobatic dancer, the dance numbers are totally graceless. The whole thing looks "heavy" and Marika Rökk is like a heifer. In addition, and probably due to the garish Agfa colour, she looks a bit like a drag queen... Saying that, with the right director and right script, she could have been a really good comedienne comparable to the talented Lucille Ball.

2) Both males leads are so plain and lackluster and totally forgettable.

3) The script is very choppy as if scenes were put together in a higgldy-piggledy fashion.

For me the only pleasurable parts were the scenes with the great Grethe Weiser... It is a shame she only appears in just a few scenes.

Overall, I would not recommend this film, unless you are an unconditional fan of Marika Rökk.