Maskenball bei Scotland Yard (1963)

Odd Italo-Austrian co-production featuring a chiefly Italian cast but lots of German-language songs. The premise and razor-thin plot never grow into anything worth watching. +++ +++ [click title to read review]

Charleys Tante (1963)

An Austrian take on Brandon Thomas’s 1892 play Charley’s Aunt, featuring Peter Alexander and Fritz Eckhardt. +++ +++ [click title to read review]

Die Abenteuer des Grafen Bobby (1961)

Die Abenteuer des Grafen Bobby is an Austrian comedy revolving around a man in women’s clothing, featuring singing performances by Peter Alexander and Bill Ramsey. +++ +++ [click title to read review]

1. April 2000 (1952)

On November 19th 1952, a strange film premiered in Vienna. Commissioned by the Austrian government, 1. April 2000 was a sci-fi satire with one purpose: promoting the case of Austria’s sovereignty and ending the post-war occupation. +++ +++ [click title to read review]

Drei Mann in einem Boot (1961)

Loosely based on Jerome’s novel Three Men in a Boat, this German comedy sees three men trying to find some peace and quiet by embarking on a journey across Lake Constance and down the river Rhine. +++ +++ [click title to read review]

La loi, c’est la loi (1958)

This Italo-French co-production, whose Italian version of the title is La legge è legge, combines the talents of Toto and Fernandel as Guiseppe and Ferdinand. One a smuggler, the other a customs agent, they have to deal with a complicated border that cuts their town in half. This black&white comedy starts out a bit slow, but is rather entertaining for the most part. +++ +++ [click title to read review]

Les Aventures d’Arsène Lupin (1957)

Notorious gentleman thief Arsène Lupin not only gets to steal from France’s high society in this film, he also tangles with the German emperor, Wilhelm II. This film trots along at a nice pace, but without having a proper arc or structure. +++ +++ [click title to read review]

Le coup du parapluie (1980)

A carefree, philandering actor, who is also a bit of a hapless fool, wants to get cast in the role of a hitman, but instead is accidentally hired as a real hitman for an actual assassination plot. And now everyone is out to get him. This film is entertaining, but not great. In fact, it barely qualifies as “good”. Gert Fröbe elevates the film somewhat by his sheer screen presence and the larger-than-life persona of the racist arms-dealer he plays. +++ +++ [click title to read review]

Geisterkomödie – eine unwahrscheinliche Komödie (1965)

This is an Austrian TV-retake of Blithe Spirit, and while it offers at least three very good performances it offers nothing new. From today’s point of view, where Coward’s own 1945 cinema version is readily available for home viewing, these types of TV-retakes and -remakes that were very common in the 1950s and 1960s feel particularly superfluous. +++ +++ [click title to read review]

La bourse et la vie (1966)

This French-German-Italian co-production is a comedy of errors with little story and miniscule character development (which feels forced and unearned). A lot of jokes are lined up along the wild-goose chase at the centre of the film, but many of them are not funny. You can safely give this one a pass, unless you are keen on seeing every film with Fernandel and/or Rühmann. +++ +++ [click title to read review]