That Can't Shake Our Willi! (1970) User Reviews

Heinz Erhardt being Heinz Erhardt

[mdm-11 · 6/10 · 30 September 2012]

For fans of the comedic national treasure, Heinz Erhardt, this will be a treat. Anyone unfamiliar with Erhardt and his humor may find this film rather idiotic.

The Hirsekorns are a dysfunctional middle class family. Constantly competing with their neighbors in everything they do. A scene with the wives at the grocer's sets the stage for their feud. One housewife wants a long list of exotic food, then the other demands twice the amount of those same items, only with domestic brand names! "Anything you can do, I can do better!" Although middle aged, they act like spoiled children.

The main characters (along with this tone setting scene) are all introduced within 10 minutes. Aside from the constant talking, shouting and aimless running around (90% of which are done by Willi Hirsekorn and his daffy wife) there are many little jokes, put downs and thinly veiled insults a la Heinz Erhardt, which are probably worth the price of the DVD. The story and the overall production, however, is very dated and not quite up to the quality of other films of the classic German fluff/comedy genre.

The Hirsekorns' two elementary school age children are extremely poorly behaved. The family could certainly benefit from a visit by "Super Nanny". If you like Heinz Erhardt, you will enjoy his "schtick" and gloss over the obvious shortcomings of this film. I love Heinz Erhardt, and I watched the entire film for all of the gags.

Possibly the first movie ever with DVD chapter titles on screen

[Chip_douglas · 6/10 · 28 February 2008]

A mere four months after the release of the first successful Willi Winzig film 'Was Ist Den Bloß mit Willi Los?", Heinz Erhardt returned to the silver screen as another Willi, Hirsekorn to be precise. Erhardt introduces the film himself in an unnecessary prologue accompanied by some unconvincing attempts of him trying to 'push back' the opening credits. This Willi (though basically the same character Erhardt usually plays) is married, has two children and a 'fourlegged boxer' as mentioned in the opening credits: a dog of said breed called 'Karl-Heinz'. Ruth Stephan, who appeared as Willi's secretary less than half a year ago, has been elevated to the part of his wife this time round and Hans Terofal appears as her dimwitted, accident prone brother, who for some reason also lives with them.

The Hirsekorn family has never really gotten on with their next door neighbors, the Buntje's (Günther Jerschke and Käte Jaenicke). Heimo and Mizzi, for that are the Buntje's first names, have a teenage daughter Petra (Angelika Baumgart) but disapprove of her mustachioed boyfriend Herbert (Klaus Hagen Latwesen). When her parents decide to take a tour bus to Italy, Petra and Herbert concoct a cunning plan to get him into her parents good graces. Apparently all he has to do is shave his upper lip and introduce himself as a nice clean cut boy. In another strange attempt at humor, the title of this very movie is mentioned on the Hirsekorn's TV, but Willi's wife Sieglinde turns it off in order to convince her hubby to go Italy as well (she always wants to one up Mizzi). Willi mentions he visited Italy in '42 (ooh er, I thought making fun of the war was illegal in Germany) but eventually he concedes and promises to drive the entire family (dog, brother in law et all) to the very same hotel the bus is headed for: Grand Hotel Remolo.

Most of the car trip seems to have been filmed inside Willi's cramped little car. This means the characters in front were shot separately from the characters in back in order to accommodate the cameraman. Must have been quite a task for the continuity/script girl. Though this picture obviously had a slighter bigger budget than the previous Willi (hence a story with more scope and more locations) writer/director Rolf Olsen is not afraid to include some of the most tiresome techniques ever seen in comedy: sped up music accompanying a fast forwarded sequence, as well as whistle and drum-roll sound effects. Once we get to the seaside (I'm not entirely convinced they set foot in Italy, though there is some Italian to be heard), there are more Benny Hill inspired gags and musical cues, as well as some crudely animated wasps and 'sunburn' effects.

As mentioned at the top of this comment, years before every film was split into different chapters for it to be released on DVD, this movie already has chapter titles in place, as well as on screen: "Wochenendefriende", "Die Abfahrt", "Die Reise", "Der Ferienort", "Der Strandleben", "Die Ferienromanze" and "Der Abschied". This should come in handy for the kind of audience that loves to turn of their brain and have everything explained to them (which, according to the IMDb message boards is quite a big portion of the viewing public) as well as for the inevitable DVD release (though I suspect six or seven chapters might be a bit sparse).

At first the quarreling neighbors continue at their usual pace at the beach in Italy, but when the two men spot a buxom blonde, they decide to team up and aim for some holiday romance as long as the wife's (handily indisposed by the aforementioned sunburns) don't catch on. Both Willi and Heimo fail to realize that blonde Clementine (Almut Berg) is only interested in their money. That silly brother in law of Willi has found a willing victim in the Hotel owner's daughter, but finds himself continually thwarted by his own niece and nephew (shame on them). When Erhardt starts to sing a silly song on the last night of the holiday you know the film is drawing to a close and every loose end will be resolved before the song is through. And so it is. At least until the next Willi.

6 out of 10

Positively surprised

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 17 June 2016]

"Das kann doch unsren Willi nicht erschüttern" is another German comedy movie from the 1970s and this one is already over 45 years old. The writer and director here is Rolf Olsen and this is maybe his most known work. German comedy legend Heinz Erhardt reprises his role as Willi, a likable slob, and this time he goes on the holidays and with another family on holidays too, Erhardt almost shares the lead role with Günther Jerschke. Erhardt was already over 60 when he made this and these Willi films are what the last years of his career were most known for. It is also in color already of course and you may guess that it may have inspired other German films in the future, such as Gotschalk's and Kürger's "Supernasen" for example. I must say after having watched four Willi films, I guess this one here ends up as my favorite and maybe the only one I would recommend. There were actually a couple jokes in here that I found pretty funny and I was surprised myself. Pther than that, there is nothing new. It runs for roughly 90 minutes like the others. I give it a thumbs down. Go check it out, especially if you like Erhardt.