Bachelor of Hearts

With a screenplay by Leslie Bricusse and Frederic Raphael and terrific color photography by Geoffrey Unsworth, Wolf Rilla's "Bachelor of Hearts" is a one-of-a-kind grandiose sort of rom-com. Loaded with physical comedy, it's shot on location at Cambridge and provides an exaggerated look at the strange rituals and behavior of those upper class twits that Monty Python made such fun of a decade later.

International superstar Hardy Kruger is constantly the center of attention, providing an outsider's point-of-view mixing with his fellow students at Cambridge University. Sort of the steady center of the movie, Sylvia Syms plays his #1 romantic interest from a nearby Girls College, playing straight to Hardy no matter how outrageous his antics become.

Director Wolf Rilla (who made the classic "Village of the Damned"") pulls out all the stops, including documentary-style footage of the campus events with students as extras, and even mixes in plenty of sex comedy for Hardy to frantically execute. Among the many pretty girls in the cast is a fun turn by Barbara Steele, affecting a high-pitched goofy voice worthy of Carol Kane.

This is a pleasant little film, jam-packed with amusing stereotypes of the English and university life as seen through the eyes of exchange student Wolf Hauser (very young and good-looking Kruger) If this movie had been made even 10 years later I wonder if there would have been a deeper exploration of Hauser's attempts to fit in with his surroundings and his very German presence in a still anti-German post-war England?

As it is, the movie is memorable for the glorious footage of Cambridge (undoubtedly one of the most photogenic places in England) and the lovely Sylvia Sims, who manages to sweetly steal every scene she appears in. She is very reminiscent of Kristen Scott Thomas at times, with her terribly english loveliness. Strong supporting cast including Ronald Lewis and Eric Barker help a lot.

Cute, harmless comedy when there's nothing better to do.

After his success in 'The One That Got Away' German actor Hardy Kruger played the lead role in another British feature film. In this 1958 romantic comedy Kruger plays West German mathematics student Wolf Hauser, who is on an exchange scholarship to Cambridge University. While there he becomes involved with a Cambridge University student group called 'The Dodos', and picks up a new girlfriend. A lightweight student comedy drama which doesn't amount to much either comedy wise, drama wise, or romance wise, is episodic, and has Kruger in the central role, who (although not bad) is not convincing as a romantic lead. It does have several highlights though (thanks to Leslie Bricusse and Frederic Raphael's screenplay) including a male nighttime raid on Girton College, and documentary footage of 'Poppy Day', but the highlight of director Wolf Rilla's film is Geoffrey Unsworth's colour cinematography of late 1950s Cambridge (it sometimes almost seems like a kind of promo for Cambridge), as Wolf learns about life, love, and broadening his horizons. Naturally the romance laden ending ends with a bit of punting.

This gentle comedy really scores for me. Hardy Kruger is very good, then again so are all the players in this film. However, I have to admit that one of my favourite actresses, the beautiful Sylvia Syms not only steals the film but also my heart. The Cambridge scenes and scenery are beautiful too, and as someone who lives near that iconic City it really is shown off at it's best. Others have suggested this is a film to watch if you have nothing else to do, I disagree, this feelgood film for me is a joy and as such needs to be watched and appreciated for what it is - a lovely piece of our past when things were simpler, happier and more innocent.

Wolf Rilla did his best with this film, but it ended up looking like a fluffy cake in the shape of Cambridge, well beyond its sell by date. A few years earlier it may have worked but by 1958 it appeared still looking pretty visually but stale. John Osborne had written ' Look Back in Anger ' and from America ' Blackboard Jungle ' and ' Rebel Without A Cause ' had shaken up the insides of schools. But here in this meandering film the relentless high jinks of privileged youth and secret ceremonies still reigned causing mock havoc. Throwing Hardy Kruger as an exchange student in a mock execution into the relentlessly punting river was still ' fun ' and as the British take a long time in growing up it may still continue. Sylvia Syms is utterly wasted as Kruger's girlfriend ( not that much chemistry showed ) and Ronald Lewis tried to be funny as a fellow student but they all must have known that there was very little to do with their roles. The one plot highlight was Kruger on a hunting search for women for his fellow students to take to a ball, and that should have been cut out or shortened. It was boring and sexist and the ultimate insult was that the ' girls ' once rounded up like cattle seemed to like their moronic companions. I dreaded a joke about the Germans and ' the War ' but Rilla fortunately avoided that, and I give it a 5 for showing a boringly normal German, unlike the usual stereotyped Germans in the endless War heroics cluttering up the British film industry. For that one important element the film was refreshing.