Strangers in Paradise

I saw this film as part of a retrospective of Ulli Lommel films in Munch, Germany, back in December of 2009. I do not care much for his recent horror flicks, but this film deserves attention and acclaim. As one can see, it polarizes, lots of 9s and 10s and lots of 1-ratings. Wow! Seldom has there been a director who is that controversial. I enjoyed the camera work and the acting and the song and dance numbers, my favorite one is THE SAME OLD SONG AND DANCE, where Lommel takes a swing at the Reagan area born again Christians in America and their double standards in morals and ethics. It's a very political movie for me, yet highly entertaining. Made back in 1984, it has almost vanished. Someone should remaster this film and do a new release on DVD or put it back in the theatres where it belongs. This has the potential of becoming a cult hit like ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, I mean it. It's almost a master piece.

This is mostly a political statement with some of the worst directed and staged song and dance numbers ever. Since the film is 50% song and dance, would it be too much to ask for the dancing to match the beat or the singers to lip-sync properly? The director, writer, and producer of STRANGERS IN PARADISE, Ulli Lommel, also stars as a mesmerist from WWII Germany named Sage, who is cryogenically frozen in the 1940s to escape Hitler (also played by Ulli Lommel). A group of crazy California fascists thaw out Sage in the 1980s and try to get him to hypnotize gays and punks into being upstanding citizens. There are a few effective moments in the movie, like a record burning and a scene of Sage hypnotizing the fascists into punks. But really! The songs are imitation Doors songs for the most part, very dated sounding even in the 80s, and Ulli Lommel the director gets a very poor performance out of Ulli Lommel the actor. Sage is so out of it most of the time and can barely speak in a whisper, and then he has nothing interesting to say! The rest of the acting is designed so none of the actors would upstage the zombie-like lead actor, and all of the musical numbers are very messy. It seems to be a movie that Ulli Lommel made for Ulli Lommel, and maybe his grandkids would enjoy it but I thought it was a missed opportunity. See THE PRODUCERS instead.

Strangers in Paradise is a lost classic which deserves its place in the pantheon of B-grade musicals right next to Can't Stop the Music and The Apple! The film is about a Wiemar era hypnotist who goes into cryogenic suspension in order to escape Hitler only to be thawed out by an ultra conservative political party who use him to further their own agenda.

Most of the story is told in musical numbers, and no 80's genre is left unsullied! Devo style art-rock, hair metal, and pretty much anything that was on MTV in 84' is trotted out, often with unintentionally hilarious results. My VHS copy of this is the pride of my bad musical collection.

My review was written in September 1986 after watching the movie on Vestron video cassette.

German actor-director Ulli Lommel has made a name for himself Stateside with a series of low-budget horror and fantasy features (notably "Boogey Man"), but comes a cropper with he music video-styled misfire "Strangers in Paradise". Filmed in 1983, incoherent picture tries hard to enter the cult territory of a "Rocky Horror Picture Show" but fails.

Opening reel is in black & white, with Lommel cameoing as Hitler in 1939 Berlin, while also playing stage mentalist Jonathan Sage, who escapes in 1940 to Lonon where he is frozen. Decades later, a scientist (Geoffrey Barker) unfreezes Sage to help his right wing group of Californians in their quest to modify young people's aberrant behavior. For the jumpteenth time, rock 'n' roll music is treated by the straw man bad guys as a symbol of moral decay that must be wiped out.

Everyone in sight keeps belting out songs, while expository dialog is poorly recorded in what sounds like an echo chamber, and crudely post-synchronized with the action. Fantasy musical numbers aren't very interesting to watch here, while the eclectic music track by Moonlight Drive includes material sounding like everyone from the Doors to Devo.

Running time is padded by a boring highlights sequence that repeats mucho footage already seen and pic then ends abruptly with no resolution of the storyline.

Actually not too bad as I thought it would be (although I did fast forward through the screaming female punk singer near the beginning) and really enjoyed most of the music. The story is a familiar one that always reminds me of those cult religions, where we are supposed to live perfect lives in a paradise, but always ends up looking like we'd all be robots. Z grade budget, of course, but must say that the editing was brilliant and made the movie much more interesting than it would have been. Tried getting the film soundtrack, but no luck, of course. Loved the "Nobody" song in particular. Highly recommended, though, if you like unusual musicals.