Grandpa can't help it

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Movie
German title Grandpa can't help it
Original title Kotch
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1971
length 114 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Jack Lemmon
script John Paxton
production Richard Carter
music Marvin Hamlisch
camera Richard H. Kline
cut Ralph E. Winters
occupation

Grandpa Can't Keep It Up is an American comedy film from 1971 . It is a film adaptation of the novel Kotch by Katharine Topkins . The film is also known in Germany under the title Grandpa Kotch - With full steam out of the dead end .

action

Retired Joseph P. Kotcher lives with his son Gerald and daughter-in-law Wilma Kotcher in a house in Los Angeles , California. He is a caring, loving, but also easily talkative old man who loves to take care of his grandson Duncan. However, he gets so on Wilma's nerves with his manner that she slowly tries to push him out of the family. So she replaces him with the new babysitter Erica Herzenstiel. She's supposed to take care of Duncan now. That makes her more bad than right, so that Joseph tries to intervene with Gerald. Instead, he has to find out that he is to be deported to an old people's home. But he is not very enthusiastic about Sunnydale . He'd rather take care of his family. When he visits Gerald and Wilma for Halloween , however, he realizes that he is not really welcome.

Instead, Joseph prefers to visit Erica. She is pregnant and he helped her with some money some time ago. Now he finds her working as a hairdresser in Palm Springs , California. He rents a house there, offers her to live with him and from then on takes care of her lovingly. She enjoys the following time and his care. But to his horror, she decides to put the baby up for adoption after it is born. However, that doesn't prevent him from continuing to take care of her. One night she wakes him up. The labor has started. Joseph drives them quickly towards the hospital. But they don't make it in time. Erica gives birth to her child in the ladies' room at a gas station. She decides to keep the baby and after a while starts a new life in Los Angeles.

Joseph, however, visits his son again after a long time. Gerald and Wilma didn't know where Joseph was all this time. They worried and saw for themselves how much they missed him, which is why they apologize and are now asking him to move back in. Joseph refuses. He wants to stay in Palm Springs because he is still needed there. Rather, he invites the two to his place. When he is back at home, Joseph finds a letter from Erica. It was originally written to later explain to the adopted child why she decided against him. He reads it and learns from it the greatest gratitude that Erica feels towards him for his care.

background

Jack Lemmon's directorial debut was to be his only directorial work. His friend Walter Matthau was 50 years old at the time of shooting. Charles Aidman, who plays his son, was only five years younger at 45. Matthaus stepdaughter Lucy Saroyan played the character of the sissy.

The film opened in US cinemas on September 17, 1971. With a production budget of 1.5 million US dollars, the film grossed over 3.3 million in the States and nearly 1.4 million overseas. This generated a surplus of just over 330,000 US dollars. The film was first broadcast in the GDR on October 23, 1978 on DFF 1 and in the Federal Republic of Germany on May 7, 1982 on ARD .

criticism

Vincent Canby of the New York Times saw the film as a "beautiful sentimental what-if comedy". He praised Matthau, who played his character "with as little airs as possible" and criticized Lemmon's directorial debut. Because this makes too little of the story and is downright "honest, if not downright depressing."

Although the renowned film critic Roger Ebert admired the actor, he said that he simply couldn't take the character constellation seriously. While all the others are “simple and one-dimensional parodies”, his character seems far too “complete, competent and heartfelt.” He also criticized Lemmon as a director, because everything that defines him as an actor is missing as a director, alongside “dozens of others little things "especially" his sense of humor. "

The lexicon of international films saw the film as “a comedy with understanding humor with melancholy undertones about the difficulties of growing old, loneliness, a sense of responsibility and solidarity. Thanks to Walter Matthaus' art of representation, worth seeing despite formal deficiencies. "

Awards

Academy Awards 1972
Golden Globe Awards 1972

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "ABC's 5 Years of Film Production Profits & Losses," Variety , May 31, 1973, p. 3
  2. ↑ Vincent Canby : Kotch (1971) on nytimes.com of October 1, 1971 (English), accessed January 6, 2013
  3. ↑ Roger Ebert : Kotch on suntimes.com of October 26, 1971 (English), accessed on January 6, 2013
  4. ↑ Grandpa can't help it. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used