Der Formel Eins Film

West Germany 1985
produced by
Hans Weth, Peter Zenk, Jörn Klamroth, Bernd Eichinger (co), Andreas Thiesmeyer (co) for Solaris Film, Bavaria, Constantin Film, WDR
directed by Wolfgang Büld
starring Sissy Kelling, Frank Meyer-Brockmann, Ingolf Lück, Campino and Die Toten Hosen, Dietmar Bär, Falco, Katrina Leskanich and Katrina and the Waves, Limahl, Meat Loaf, Pia Zadora, Rolf Zacher, Günther Sigl, Michael Bentele, Klaus Lemke, Heinz Hoenig, the Stranglers, the Flirts, Enno Patalas, Kurt Raab, Karina Fallenstein, Peter von Strombeck, Henry van Lyck, Claus Fuchs, April De Luca, Gernot Duda, Kai S. Pieck, Larry Juice, Eva Röder, Alexander Brem, Thomas Kovacs, Robert Jeffers, Volker Wach, Ulrich Günther
idea by Peter Zemann, screenplay by Wolfgang Büld, Rochus Hahn, Peter Zemann

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Tina (Sissy Kelling) is a car mechanic who has dreams about becoming a pop star, so she takes her demo tape to the TV-show Formel Eins (back in the mid-1980's one of the few pop music TV-shows on German television, which was actually hosted by Ingolf Lück, who also does so in the film). Setback after setback and several destroyed demo tapes later, she gets a job at the show and becomes romantically involved with production assistance Stevie (Frank Meyer-Brockmann). Then Stevie is drafted though, and she doesn't see him anymore.

Tina meets Limahl, then the (real-life) pop sensation, and the two get along rather well, well enough for newspapers to print she's his girlfriend. This is too much for Stevie, who deserts from the army to win her back, but once he has found her, Limahl is gone and with him the last copy of her demo tape - which she needs though because this evening she is to appear on Formel Eins in Limahl's stead. After an extended chase scene through Bavaria Studios, everything ends happily, though ...

It's pretty much a no-brainer that a pop music show on television is not a good base for a motion picture ... but well, these guys tried anyways, and the outcome is the expected disaster, a sloppily written and lazily directed combination of a disappointingly simplistic lovestory, atrociously bad comedy, musical performances of then popular popstars, and of course traces of Flashdance althroughout. The whole thing is not at all helped by the fact that the entire cast turns in lazy performances, and that neither actors nor director understand comedy in the least. Sure, you might still get a bit of a kick out of the film as a piece of pure nostalgia, but don't expect anything beyond that.

By the way, German fun punk band Die Toten Hosen, who serve as running gag and comedy relief here, actually had a future in the music industry and were still going strong a quarter of a century later.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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