- Widower Paul always delayed talking to his daughter about sex. But when workers on a nearby construction site are falling down their scaffold because 16 years old "Herzblatt" is tanning naked, he feels he has to take action. In the hope she'll learn herself what consequences the difference between boys and girls has, he tries to get her a boyfriend.—Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
- Paul, called "Männchen " (little man), lives with his daughter, "Herzblatt" (Honeybun), whom he has raised alone after the death of his wife. He raised Herzblatt according to the instructions of a book by Dr. Seebauer, M.D. Following Seebauer, he taught Herzblatt not to be ashamed of her body. The nakedness of a human is normal Herzblatt has learned at a early age. This led to a fixation on her father, who is her father, mother, friend and playmate at the same time. Even now that Herzblatt is well into puberty, she still bathes with her father, both of whom enjoy soap-bubble battles, and she lives unabashedly naked in the apartment and on the roof terrace because she is unaware of her effect on men. Paul seeks advice from Dr. Seebauer to teach her about sex and its effects. He suggests searching for Herzblatt to find a young man who should direct her attention from Paul to a young man whom Paul is to find. Paul turns to contractor Max, who has had to suffer indirectly from Herzblatt's charm; his construction site is located opposite Herzblatt's roof terrace. The workers, in turn, regularly fall off the scaffolding when they want to see the naked Herzblatt sun bathing. Max's three sons: Olaf, Otto and Oskar are respectively the sporty, alternative or well-bred son. All three are gradually introduced to Herzblatt and she eventually rejects all three of them. The first one aggressively kisses her and receives a slap in the face, the other one partially undresses her at her invitation, but she does not feel stirring of emotions, and the third admits to want to sleep with her, but she has no interest and she bloodies him when he gets aggressive. Her ideal is taken from a scene that Ernest Hemingway describes in "For whom the bell tolls:" a couple rest and embrace by the side of a creek and "the earth quakes." The reported "earthquake" in the book Herzblatt takes as the ideal of real love, yet she feels no such quake with any of Max's sons.
Herzblatt is increasingly annoyed because everyone talks only about sex. The education ministry issues a sex education book to be used in school for education. The teachers, however, balk at the book's presentation. When the student newspaper staff decide to print their own comments and demands (a location to practice the sex education) Herzblatt instead wants to write about Hemingway and romantic aspects found in his novels. She is ejected from the staff. She suspects, however, that she is slowly growing up. Meanwhile on the way to school, she repeatedly meets a similarly aged boy on a bridge who distributes fliers. He eventually puts a sheet in her hand, on which he has written "I love you." Herzblatt reacts uncertainly to this and soon asks Paul how he knew he was in love with her mother. Paul first spins a comical story, but then admits that it was the simple words "I love you" which he told her. Herzblatt immediately rushes to the flyer distributor and shows him in rejoinder his note with the words "I love you." Together they drive into the country, lie down together in a meadow and share a kiss. At that moment a nearby excavating dynamite blast takes place, causing the earth to quake just at the right time. The film ends.
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What is the English language plot outline for Herzblatt oder Wie sag' ich's meiner Tochter? (1969)?
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