How to catch a millionaire?
Love comedy, 3sat, Pentecost Sunday, 8.15 p.m
The comedy about the role of women in the 1950s – if they don’t just want to be properly taken care of. The three models, who one day come together to finally end the compromises, want the whole pie and not just the cherry. A film as if cast in one piece, from the over-the-top, somehow misplaced prelude with a huge orchestra to the cast of the dream duo Lauren Bacall and Marilyn Monroe (the third in the league is Betty Grable) to the lurking situation comedy that gives the film a timeless elegance and is supposedly homely subject repeatedly turned on its head. The names alone make one fear the worst: but Tschicki, Pola and Tütü get there in a way that reconciles gender stereotypes.
The birds
Horror, Sat 1 Gold, Saturday, 10 p.m
A horror film that begins as a flirtatious romance. The horror develops from the harmlessness of a romantic chance encounter between a capricious millionaire’s daughter and a lawyer. Melanie (Tippi Hedren) brings smart-stylish Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) two birds he wanted to buy in San Francisco but couldn’t find to his hometown of Bodega Bay as a surprise gift. In a sunlit place where there is nothing reminiscent of eerie banks of fog, the horror of nature attacking people out of nowhere unfolds – in this case mainly crows and seagulls. Hitchcock’s adaptation of a short story by Daphne du Maurier is a masterpiece of subtle horror, not least thanks to the menacing, electronically generated birdcall sound that dominates the scenery.
The Naked Gun
Slapstick comedy, ZDF Neo, Whit Monday, 4:25 p.m
Compared to most works is The Naked Gun a short film. With 81 minutes, for example, with an experienced art house film, you only get halfway. However, anyone who experiences Lieutenant Frank Drebin’s story for the first time will understand after five minutes that the human body can only be exposed to a continuous fit of laughter for a limited period of time. Incidentally, much more than this rough description of the viewer’s condition during the film is not necessary as a synopsis. No matter what Leslie Nielsen does as the supercop in this slapstick orgy, whether he’s walking down a gangway or looking out the window, he’s always the wrong man in the wrong place. You have to get that right first. Also: In the Frank Drebin world, stupidity does not rule out professional success!
Ariane – Love in the afternoon
Romantic comedy, Arte, Whit Monday, 8.15 p.m
A relatively unknown film by Billy Wilder from 1957 and one of his most atmospheric. The love story between an elderly rich Casanova and a beautiful young woman was not a hit with the public. The basic problem of the film was the cast with the 55-year-old Gary Cooper in the leading role alongside Audrey Hepburn, who, however, already from Wilders sabrina with Humphrey Bogart, who was the same age as Cooper in 1954. Otherwise, everything was prepared for the perfect love story: the daughter of a private detective (Maurice Chevalier) falls in love in Paris (!) with the man her father is shadowing. She saves him from being attacked by a jealous husband and makes herself interesting by pretending that he is just one of many. The melancholic Cooper plays heartbreakingly.