Frøken Nitouche

This is surely a Danish classic movie. A must-see for Dirch Passer fans. Strangely enough Dirch hated to sing, but still he acted in quite a lot of movies where he had to show off his singing talents, and this is one of them.

The main story is all about a nun, Charlotte Borg, who is about to get married against her will, and a young soldier who likes his life as it is and his parents who also have arranged a marriage for him...Dirch is the organist at the convent and he is responsible for getting the nun to the marriage in Copenhagen...but there is a couple of things he hasn't told, so of course it all ends in confusion. It tells the story of young people in the 1880's and it tells it with laughter and music. It puts you in a happy mood, and it is really a feel good movie. A real family movie.

It's an old saying that in the classic danish film period, no movies emerged that wasn't masterpieces. This movie proves, that this is far from the case.

Frøken Nitouche is about a nun and a soldier getting married against their will, with someone they haven't seen. They both meet each other and falls in love without knowing who each other are. The plot of the movie is extremely plain, and the ending can predicted by all after less than ten minutes of watching. So you sit in the end and only waits for the ending to happen, so the movie will end. An even worse factor is the musical aspects, every five minutes everyone seems to have the urge to burst into spontaneus singing - even though the moment is totally inappropriate - and the songs are ridiculous and a waste of time. And how the nun Charlotte is praised to be the top-'boy' of the convict, and seems to matter more to the leader than all the other nuns together gives the movie an un-real aspect.

The entire movie raises up to, that we should identify and cherish the three leading characters (the nun, the soldier lad and the man who brings them together, and plays the leading role), but I can do neither. A few funny moments and clever lines saves the movie from total disaster, but all in all a great dissapointment. This is in no way a disaproval of Dirch Passer, who was one of our greatest actors and humourists, but this is just too silly and stupid.

Passer plays the singing teacher Celestin, who works at a monastery. One who enjoys his teaching is the lovely Charlotte Borg. They both long for a life outside the walls of the monastery and every night Celstine sneaks out to live a double life and take on the role of composer Floridor. When the prima donna in Floridor's performance suddenly falls ill, the monastery's Charlotte Borg, gets to take over the lead role...

Dirch Passer and the comedy is great, but the anachromisms not so much. Nils Poppe who seem to have been fond of Dirch Passer made this like many other of his movies into theater twice ("Lilla helgonet", 1973 and 1984) at his yearly televised shows at Fredriksdal in Helsingborg, but Poppe had the sense to let the story take place in France like in the original operetta "Mam'zelle Nitouche".

How is it there are nun monastery schools in the 1880's Denmark? Denmark got freedom of religion by the constitution in 1849, but there were no nuns..