Pretty Good

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I must say that this movie really hurt me, being a German. But it's reality, so let's face it. Made in 1931, same year as M (or Frankenstein), this German movie was in recent years re-released on DVD, advertised as musical comedy.What happens? Captain Craddock (Hans Albers), commanding a battleship of the fictional country of Pontenero (easily associating Montenegro, Balkan, Europe), is ordered to go to Livorno (Italy) to pick up his queen. Frustrated (among other things, by non-paid wages), he refuses the order and rather goes to Monte Carlo (Monaco). The queen takes it easy and goes there too. To pay the wages, she sells her chain of pearls for 100,000 Francs.The captain takes the money, and later meets the queen in the casino without knowing her. They go gambling at roulette. He wins some, loses some. In the final rounds, he risks the wage money - and loses it.You can't call him anything but a bad loser as he threatens to bombard Monte Carlo (hence the title) if they don't pay him back his losses. Guns are pointed, crew is ready, people are fleeing - in the end, a boat comes with the money. The captain is arrested by his queen, but escapes to take a cruiser to Honolulu (of all places).If this movie (starring Hans Albers, Heinz Ruehmann, Peter Lorre etc.) was considered funny in 1931's Germany, it's no wonder that two years later the Nazis won elections without much fuss. And all that came after.Early on, Heinz Ruehmann (playing first officer) sits on a cannon for fishing - the most obvious phallic symbol I've ever seen in a movie. Later, those guns are fired, but happily only for farewell salute.This movie is interesting historically - but sure isn't cute. As I see it, it rather displays blatant international immorality (blackmail with naval power). I thought that German movies before 1933 were morally better than after - boy, was I wrong... Even some pieces by the Comedian Harmonists can't help.

This peppy little fantasy with songs is like Weimar Germany's answer to the Jeanette MacDonald-Maurice Chevalier musicals (the story actually bears similarities to "The Love Parade.") It's easy to see from this why Anna Sten was brought to Hollywood as a Marlene Dietrich clone, as the resemblance is truly uncanny. Peter Lorre (fresh from "M") is adorable in his little sailor costume, and there's even a glimpse of the Comedian Harmonists!