In Praise of Torben Fritsch

    

The Germans get a bad rap for not having good senses of humor, what with starting World War II, and introducing the world to Zungenwurst, it is an unfortunate side effect of the quest for world domination and inedible foods that has overshadowed a plethora of funny stuff.  The "Weird Guy" series of West German sex comedies boasts lots of laughs, albeit of a lower than low-brow type.  

The unnamed Weird Guy is a mute stooge, who finds himself always surrounded by buxom ladies and ridiculous sexual situations.  Picture a cross between Chaplin's Tramp character and Pee Wee from PORKY'S (1981).  

Every time the weird guy is about to get down with a lovely Fraulein something happens to curtail his fun.  While making out in the hay, he gets poked in the ass by a doddering farmer wielding a pitchfork.  A stampede of sheep.  A bee's nest . . .  It seems as though man, beast and nature are against our little hero getting lucky.  But it is not only the weird guy who tries to get some action, as several local dudes try to get it on with the ladies with similar abysmal results.

The movie was filmed in Glücksburg, Germany, initially with the cooperation of the entire citizenry, but for all promotional items the name of the town was changed due to the insistence of the same citizens, as they thought that the movie portrayed the locals as moronic country folk who only had sex on their minds.  So, the second "U" was changed to an E, and the umlaut on the first U was positioned underneath. 

Director Rolph Brummer was dubbed the "König der Deutschen Sexfilme", by himself.  He directed forty-three of them commencing with 1970's IHR GELIEBTER, DER NARR, aka HER LOVER, THE FOOL and ending with 1985's JUNGFRAU AUS MÜNCHEN.

Some of his better ones in between are PARIS AUF DREI MÄDCHEN AM TAG, aka PARIS ON THREE GIRLS A DAY (1973), OLGA'S ALPINE ADVENTURE (1974), LEDERHOSEN AND CHAMPAGNE FOR BREAKFAST (1977) SCHÜLERINNEN, DIE ES BESSER HÄTTEN WISSEN MÜSSEN (1978), aka SCHOOLGIRLS THAT SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER and 1982's BLUE LIGHT LADY IN THE RED-LIGHT DISTRICT.

Torben Fritsch plays the titular tit fiend, a five foot nothing, club-footed, subhuman, sexual dynamo, doffing a Tyrolean hat.  Fritsch was apparently exactly like his character in real life, except he didn't wear hats.  Fritsch tried to lay every female member of the cast and crew; also, a male member or two, plus a sheep on one particular Dunkelweizen fueled farm escapade.  He was truly beloved by all.  Noted for being rather generous, he would give someone the shirt off of his back. . . and his pants, his underwear.  Plus, a sock stuffed in one's mouth if he really took a shine to you.  He lent his talents to two other films, HOW MUCH TROUBLE CAN A GIRL GET INTO? (1975) aka WIE VIEL ÄRGER KANN EIN MäDCHEN BEKOMMEN? and THE GIRL WITH THE WONDERFUL BUM (1976) aka DAS MÄDCHEN MIT DEM WUNDERBAREN HINTERN. 

 

The other two Weird Guy films are, DER SELTSAME TYP VON HEIDELBERG aka THE WEIRD GUY OF HEIDELBERG (1976) and THE WEIRD GUY URLAUB IM RHEINTAL aka THE WEIRD GUY HOLIDAYS AT THE RHINE VALLEY (1979).  Neither of these two sequels were directed by Rolph Brummer, nor featured Fritsch, and both movies combined don't have a quarter of the laughs, charm and uneasy sexual situations bordering on the criminal that the original has.

Sadly, Torben Fritsch passed away in a barnyard mishap, involving a pony, a jar of apfelkraut and a picture of Otto Von Bismarck.