go-for-it-baby-backdrop

Blauer Salon
Summer term 2021
Go for It, Baby

Moderated by Alex Thelen

Go for It, Baby

Director: May Spils | Germany 1968 | 80 min | 35mm | German Original Version | with Werner Enke, Uschi Glas, Henry van Lyck

Experience the adventurous, thrilling, and dramatic tale of a... groper. Martin (Werner Enke) drifts through life, spouting pseudo-philosophical one-liners and living in the moment. He collects potatoes and stones that resemble the heads of friends and acquaintances, idolizes "the father of Balzac," who supposedly spent 20 years in bed, and asks a girl he picks up at the swimming pool whether she could “support” him—before inviting her into his own bed. His motto: “It’s going to end badly...” But then Barbara (Uschi Glas) enters the picture and turns his world upside down. Zur Sache, Schätzchen became an unexpected box office hit and is considered the most successful film of the Schwabing film scene and the New Munich Group. It was a bold slap in the face to the self-righteous postwar society and the ideology of the economic miracle, to the emerging sexual revolution, and to Munich’s smug film and pop culture scene. At just 26, May Spils became the first female director of the postwar generation to present a comedy that cheekily captured the spirit of the times—and still feels fresh today.

Loan of the film print with kind support of HfG Karlsruhe.