Hurra, die Schule brennt - Die Lümmel von der ersten Bank IV. Teil

This 4th part of the "Lümmel series" is absolutely a peak in fatuity and stuffy morals. In this part not only the usual imbecile humour and ditto scripting, trying to introduce some "freshness" into the by now thread bare format the story (such as there is) is centered around Schager-singer Peter Alexander and a very embarrassing export product from The Netherlands: boy singer Heintje as Alexander's nephew, who is looking for a wife for his uncle as uncle is very clumsy at house keeping - wow, what an exciting subject.

While Heintje torments the ears with his warbling, Peter Alexander - who needed a good director to be acceptable - bores the viewer to death by just being there, but especially during his bloody awful impersonation of Hans Moser. Watching these two you would have give anything to have Hannelore Elsner and even Uschi Glas back. Seeing this part I again wondered why such great comedians as Theo Lingen, Ruth Stephan and Werner Finck (in this part only) kept working in the series; were they forced or is it proof that in the declining German mainstream cinema there was no place for them?

There is a modernized version of Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell" as school play, that combines Tell with Bonanza! O yes, this could have been a fine idea if executed well and with a sense of humour and tongue-in-cheek, but it is of course a very reactionary view on the social changes within society: in this case make fun of those who seriously wanted to modernize the classics. Alexander has to shoot an egg on top of Heintje's head; he should have missed.

Pepe Nietnagel, the perpetual class clown is the nightmare of the staff at the prestigious "Momsen Gymnasium". Known for his outrageous practical jokes, teachers, and particularly the principal are always rightfully suspicious whenever they have to deal with "that class". The commercial success of the first film, encouraged the producers and many of the cast to crank out more annual installments. The practical jokes range from innocent "rude noises" to dangerous pranks that could cause physical and material damage. Juvenile and obnoxious, but always in "good fun" ? The students may be amused, but sometimes the "grown-ups" are suffering.

This installment in the film series presents a double-ticket of well known recording artists of their time, namely the extremely popular Peter Alexander and the child star Heintje, who was at the height of his success as a pre-teen "Grandma's favorite". It is not credible, that students who are ripe for University studies would flock around these two "Schmalz" singers. Sorry, but have you heard of The Rolling Stones or The Beatles? "Heintje Songs" were hardly on teenagers' radar ca. 1970! To pretend otherwise (which they do here) is ridiculous!

Back in the day such films still ran in theaters (when I was still in grade school), I enjoyed this sort of silly fare. Today I can only give 4 out of 10 points, and would not sit through one of those yarns. You can take your chances, but I recommend skipping this nonsense!

Anything with Peter Alexander and Heintje as top-billed cast members normally qualifies as an embarrassment that makes you want to hide behind the sofa - and this is not really an exception. The horrible couple unsurprisingly burst into song at inopportune moments, often too quickly to give the viewer time to hit the mute button. To make things worse, Peter Alexander plays his usual everybody-loves-me character - a character that was dated long before this movie came out.

However, this film can boost a few redeeming values - the support cast of Lingen, Schündler, Golling, and Stephan is in good form, but a particular jewel that really lifts the film is the scene with Werner Finck and Harald Juhnke. As brief as the scene is, it shows a prime example of Finck's perfect comic timing; that scene alone makes the film worth watching.