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Monaco Franze - Der ewige Stenz: Ein bissel was geht immer
episode 1
West Germany 1983
produced by Peter Frötschl, Elisabeth Laussen for Balance Film/BR
directed by Helmut Dietl
starring Helmut Fischer, Ruth-Maria Kubitschek, Karl Obermayr, Christine Kaufmann, Erni Singerl, Gisela Schneeberger, Alexander Hegarth, Georg Marischka, Enzi Fuchs, Klaus Guth, Thomas Gottschalk, Cleo Kretschmer, Kristina van Eyck, Ulrich Beiger, Anja Hauptmann, David Rappaport
written by Helmut Dietl, Patrick Süskind, created by Helmut Dietl, music by Dario Farina, Gian Piero Reverberi
TV-series Monaco Franze
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Annette von Söttingen (Ruth-Maria Kubitschek), a woman born into
money, loves fine arts, so she goes to the opera at least once a week,
runs an arts gallery, and tries herself as a painter - much in contrast to
her husband "Monaco" Franz Münchinger, a police detective, who
has no nerve for the opera and zero idea about paintings. He's more a man
of "adventure", though not the kind of adventure his job offers
- a job he describes as dead boring -, but adventures of a more romantic
to erotic nature. So when he one day coincidently bumps into young and
pretty Elli (Gisela Schneeberger), he's immediately taken by her charms,
and for her it's love at first sight - but then they part without so much
as to giving one another their respective names. Which means, this Friday
Franz, with his sidekick Manni (Karl Obermayr) browse all the popular
clubs to look for Elli, even if, or especially since this means ditching
Annette for opera night under a feeble pretense. Now Elli goes looking for
Franz as well, but once she finds him and Manni, they're already in the
company of two other women, to her greatest dismay. It's a week later,
and Franz doesn't manage to wriggle out of opera night again - and what he
dreads even more than the opera itself is the get-together with Annette's
pseudo-intellectual friends afterwards, whose talk about what they've just
seen might make him look stupid. So when Franz bumps into a renowned
critic (Georg Marischka), he bribes him into giving him a preview of his
review - and then pretty much dupes Annette's friends by giving them a
detailed and pretty damning "opinion" of the whole experience.
Much to Annette's dismay at first until she reads the critic's review in
the newspaper - which elevates her opinion of her husband. The next
Friday, Franz is on the prowl again for Elli, and he has pinpointed the
club where he might find her, a club she goes to as well - as indeed does
Annette ... Thomas Gottschalk, then still on the rise to becoming
Germany's most popular talk and game show host, plays a night club bouncer
in this one. Now this is a series that has actually aged pretty
well, as while stylistically it of course can't shake its early 1980s
flair, its humour is pretty timeless, and well fleshed out central
characters surrounded by some really good caricatures carry the thing in a
way that despite its far-fetched premise remains relatable throughout. And
the premise is just a wonderful subversion of German cop and crime shows
of its time that very often has the investigating cop intrude an estate
like Annette von Söttingen's (rather than marry the two characters), and
how Franz describes his job as dead boring and mostly uses its resources
for his personal needs is an added ironic twist. Another ironic twist is
of course that Helmut Fischer did actually play a recurring investigator
on the cop show Tatort from in at all 26 episodes from 1972
to 1987, with Gustl Bayrhammer playing his superior in both series. So in all pretty good
entertainment, even when not seen through a nostalgic lense.
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