The golden pill
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The golden pill |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1968 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Horst Manfred Adloff |
| script | Horst Manfred Adloff Peter Laregh |
| production | Horst Manfred Adloff |
| music | Erich Ferstl |
| camera | Michael Marszalek |
| occupation | |
| |
The golden pill is a German educational film about the birth control pill by the German producer and director Horst Manfred Adloff , who also played a small role.
action
Federal Republic of Germany 1967. The film tries to give a picture of the mood of a society that is also experiencing profound changes in the sexual sphere. The focus is on three schoolgirls who discover their sexuality and are confronted with the inhibition of their already adult environment. Elke Marwitz, for example, an enlightened, fun-loving, brunette, young woman receives the birth control pill, which enables her to live out her sexuality according to her free will. Without guilt and without side effects. Her friend Bärbel is presented as a counterexample. She, too, who is with a much older and married man, would like to have this “golden pill”, but with a morally sour expression and a raised index finger, the gynecologist refuses to give her a prescription and instead prescribes chastity. Since she does not heed this “good advice”, she promptly becomes pregnant and feels compelled to go abroad, as abortions were not possible in the era of the Catholic CDU rule (at that time). The third member of the group is the (not only sexually) uptight Lissy Bergner, who generally avoids all difficulties.
In view of this unsatisfactory situation for the young women - even the libertine Elke sees herself under constant pressure and even dreams of the sedate masters of the self-proclaimed, Federal Republican moral institutions downright persecuting her - the primaries begin to organize themselves, work one out among the students Questionnaires and finally fight for the liberal distribution of birth control pills to young, unmarried women. Their educational campaign arouses uproar and quickly meets with massive resistance in the establishment, embodied by the institutionalists in the church and at the school in the form of its director, who is loudly outraged by the questionnaire, and large parts of the teaching staff. Only one of the timpanists behaves differently. His vita is rolled out in a further storyline. It is about the father of five, Dr. Holthoff, whose married life turns out to be extremely difficult. Because his wife is very religious, refuses to take the pill and is pregnant for the fifth time. Whether he wants to or not, Holthoff has to come to terms with the unwanted blessing of children. His colleagues are amazed that he, of all people, stands up for the concerns and demands of young women for the “golden pill”.
In the end, however, everything stays the same: the students pass their Abitur and the school authorities simply put this case of the "rebellion" on file. From the off there is a warning voice that points to the overpopulation of the earth and the unwanted pregnancy of schoolgirls as arguments for contraception.
Production notes
The golden pill was shot in 1967 and premiered on January 11, 1968 in the Luitpold Film Theater in Munich.
This film is an early product of the so-called sex and educational film wave, which was to reach its peak a little later with the Oswalt Kolle films.
The film advertising poster, on which the naked Elke sees herself in a (nightmare) dream of eight graying gentlemen in suits and guarded on a shovel, was initially not allowed.
Reviews
“The Munich sculptor and plastics manufacturer Horst Manfred Adloff, 40, had helped young German cinema on its feet as a producer (" Es "); as a writer-director of an amateurish pro-pill film, he brings it down again. Adloff steers a pack of primary school girls through a play of light full of clichés and gusto. The girls want to live with the pill, but creaking teachers, oily priests and German national beer drinkers snort at it; Even in dreams, the cheeky Petra Pauly feels pursued by them, except for a towel. (...) Adloff's stilted dialogues, spoken in a layman's way, have a miraculous effect: Heinrich Lübke, whose Helmstedt stuttering speech in the film is slightly shortened to a love game, appears next to it as an eloquent Demosthenes. "
“An educational film with concerns, the staging inspired by commercials for Melabon or Halazon. Less than the fact that it was about the pill, this film makes it superfluous: It works as a sexual appetite suppressant for at least four weeks. "
In the Catholic Handbook Films 1965–70 there was massive agitation against film. It said: “An embarrassingly stupid film with clear anti-Catholic affects, which in no way does justice to the problem of family planning and responsible parenting and which falsifies and caricatures the discussion about it within the Catholic Church. - We advise against it. ”Even the Protestant film observer does not think much of the film:“ The directorial debut of […] Horst Manfred Adloff presents itself as a nudist film in the style of nudist advertising slogans and is a fair discussion far removed from the pill issue. We refuse. "
The lexicon of international films says: “A simple-minded treatise with a fashionable, speculative gesture; Part of the German wave of reconnaissance in the 1960s. "
Web links
- The golden pill in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The golden pill at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Films 1965/70. Handbook VIII of the Catholic film criticism. Volume 1. Cologne 1971, p. 115
- ↑ Evangelical Press Association Munich, Review No. 25/1968
- ↑ The golden pill. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed November 24, 2015 .