This was an all right one. Initially, it suffers from the whole "characters being really dumb to advance the plot" syndrome, when the girls keep on getting phone calls from Klaus Kinski (who's now gone full Kinski) and the blonde keeps on dismissing them with "It's just a harmless crank," with the heroine believing her. Darling, if he knows your full name and your phone number, odds are that he knows your address too. Then not calling the police after two attempts on your life within an hour? Okay, the police were already there, in the form of Fuchsberger, but you didn't know that. Then, the same night, sleeping with the window open... on the ground floor? (Fuchsberger, just get the damned chocolates and get out, like the Milk Tray Man in reverse. Don't stand there until she wakes up and sees you and then do it!) Then the blonde getting a phone call from Kinski and going off alone to the park in the middle of the night. Really? Are you both that desperate to die?
Things get better as the story unfolds. The countess is great. Though she seems serenely lovely at first, it soon becomes clear that the title is apt and she 's more than a bit cuckoo. Eddi Arrent pretty much plays it straight here and he's not bad. I find the butler's death oddly moving.
The clinic part is very good, quite disturbing with the way the patients are treated and the situation looking dire for Heroine and Mummy Dearest. I groan a bit, though, when they bring out the old chestnut of "Marry me, or else." It seems like everything in these films always revolves around a beautiful young woman being coerced into a relationship. But then, it might be like that in real life. I'll ask my mail order bride when she arrives. Fuchsberger performs an escape from a straitjacket that would make Houdini feel so inadequate he'd quit performing and get a job at McDonalds.
It's over. Fuchsberger's had to be saved from old, scrawny, alcoholic doctor by Heroine and Fast Eddi. The countess exits with diva bravado. Eddi doesn't seem to mind too much. He and Blondie are going to make moronic babies together. Heroine, of course, walks off clutching Fuchsberger, as mandated by legal decree, rather than her newly-found mother. Walking off hugging her mother wouldn't indicate clearly enough that Fuchsberger will be serving her some tasty German salami - sorry, English sausage - tonight and the women in the audience would be furious. This is the way it has to be.
The end.
Things get better as the story unfolds. The countess is great. Though she seems serenely lovely at first, it soon becomes clear that the title is apt and she 's more than a bit cuckoo. Eddi Arrent pretty much plays it straight here and he's not bad. I find the butler's death oddly moving.
The clinic part is very good, quite disturbing with the way the patients are treated and the situation looking dire for Heroine and Mummy Dearest. I groan a bit, though, when they bring out the old chestnut of "Marry me, or else." It seems like everything in these films always revolves around a beautiful young woman being coerced into a relationship. But then, it might be like that in real life. I'll ask my mail order bride when she arrives. Fuchsberger performs an escape from a straitjacket that would make Houdini feel so inadequate he'd quit performing and get a job at McDonalds.
It's over. Fuchsberger's had to be saved from old, scrawny, alcoholic doctor by Heroine and Fast Eddi. The countess exits with diva bravado. Eddi doesn't seem to mind too much. He and Blondie are going to make moronic babies together. Heroine, of course, walks off clutching Fuchsberger, as mandated by legal decree, rather than her newly-found mother. Walking off hugging her mother wouldn't indicate clearly enough that Fuchsberger will be serving her some tasty German salami - sorry, English sausage - tonight and the women in the audience would be furious. This is the way it has to be.
The end.