Top Secret!
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Top Secret! |
| Original title | Top Secret! |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1984 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Jim Abraham's David Zucker Jerry Zucker |
| script | Jim Abrahams David Zucker Jerry Zucker Martyn Burke |
| production | Jim Abrahams Jon Davison Tom Jacobson Hunt Lowry David Zucker Jerry Zucker |
| music | Maurice Jarre |
| camera | Christopher Challis |
| cut |
Françoise Bonnot Bernard Gribble |
| occupation | |
| |
Top Secret! is a 1984 comedy film directed by Jim Abrahams , David Zucker and Jerry Zucker that parodies agent films and teenage music films. Val Kilmer made his feature film debut in it.
action
Nick Rivers, an American rock 'n' roll singer (a parody of Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys ) travels to East Germany with his manager to perform at a cultural festival. However, he does not initially know that the festival should serve as a diversionary maneuver so that the Eastern government can sabotage the NATO submarine fleet during a maneuver in the Strait of Gibraltar and thus unilaterally shift the balance of power between the world powers in order to "reunite" Germany .
Rivers meets the beautiful Hillary Flammond in Berlin (she has the first name Waltraud in German dubbing). Their father Paul Flammond, a brilliant researcher, is held captive by the East Germans and forced to build the deadly "Polaris mine", a magnetic mine that is to become the main instrument in the plans of the eastern government. Nick decides to help Hillary and comes into contact with the resistance movement in East Germany. Its leader turns out to be Hillary's missing ex-lover Nigel, with whom she was stranded and raised on a desert island . In the midst of the plans to liberate the researcher, however, the suspicion that there is a traitor in the ranks of the resistance movement is reinforced.
After initial doubts about Nick's identity, Nick can dispel his doubts about himself. The rescue operation from Flammond almost fails, as leader Nigel himself is the wanted traitor and tries to lure the group into a trap. After Nick can turn him off, the rescue of Dr. Flammond, and Nick and Hillary flee East Germany together.
Reviews
Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times that he had a friend who laughed only five times during the entire film showing, while he himself managed to do so in the first 10 minutes. The enjoyment of the film is therefore very dependent on the individual sense of humor. He also wrote that the film had no plot that could be described and did not need any, since films like Top Secret! would not be looked at for their action. He gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4.
The lexicon of international films describes Top Secret! as a “fast-paced, but mostly crude parody of relevant spy films, whose jokes ignite as often as they exceed the limits of good taste. Embarrassing: the location of the GDR is often reminiscent of the National Socialist German state. "
Remarks
The use of Nazi uniforms and equipment to portray the East German military is not based on an oversight or lack of available authentic material, but on the fact that this film is a homage by the Zucker brothers and Abrahams to various agent films made in the World War II play, supposed to be what they looked at when they were younger. Since references were still difficult during the time of National Socialism in the 1980s and could have hindered the film's marketing, Berliner Synchron converted the dialogues so that they made fun of GDR clichés rather than Nazi ones. In the English original there are neither references to GDR political figures nor Saxon accents. In the German dubbing text there are therefore noticeable deviations from the English original, either for better understanding, to avoid spoiling the German language, or because certain passages could not be translated linguistically into German:
- On the train ride, Nick hears a cassette in the German version in which a narrator recites a recipe for lost eggs in mustard sauce . In the original English version, on the other hand, it is a language learning cassette with pseudo-German, where there are texts such as: “Eine blitz is in der Flachmatuche - The pen is on the table” and “Will haben dahichtmitten and der heinerblatzen - There is sauerkraut in my lederhosen ".
- In the German version, the national anthem of East Germany is Prinz Eugen, the noble knight , in the original version, however, "Heil, Heil, Ostdeutschland" to the melody of the school march of Shorewood High School (the school of the Zucker Brothers). In this song - at least in the English subtitles - the death strip and the propagated impossibility of escape were parodied. In reality, the GDR's national anthem was only performed instrumentally at that time, as the original text referred to the reunification of Germany.
Many puns could not be translated from English, for example a scene in the restaurant in which Hillary draws attention to a short man in traditional Bavarian clothes. In the German version he is presented as an admirer of Nick, in the English original it is a play on the word "German", which means both "Deutsch" (the German language) and "Deutscher" (the German person) can mean: “I'm sorry. I really don't know any German. "-" That's all right. I know a little German. He's sitting over there. “Another German joke is a scene in a pizzeria where Nick introduces himself as Heino's brother; in the original he poses as the jazz singer Mel Tormé . The resistance fighters are originally members of the French Resistance and accordingly have French names such as Deja Vu , Latrine or Chocolate Mousse .
A scene over a minute long, in which Nick and Hillary enter the bookstore to talk to its owner Sven Jorgensen, was played completely backwards by the actors. For the film it was then played backwards so that the plot seems to be "forward" again. This explains why the dog is running backwards and why Nick can throw the books into the gap in the top row of books on the high shelf. The scene required several days of rehearsals and trials. When released on DVD, the scene is included in the originally recorded version as hidden bonus material . The "Swedish bookstore" is a reference to the "Danish bookstore" in Hitchcock's The Torn Curtain .
The letterhead of the German government printed the text: "EAST GERMANY - Better Government through Intimidation" (translated: "East Germany - Better government through intimidation") and Nick's manager reads a newspaper on the train called "The Daily Oppressor" ( translated: "The daily oppressor").
When German soldiers approach a red Ford Pinto with their military vehicle and then lightly touch the rear of the vehicle, there is an immediate violent explosion. This is an allusion to a known problem with this Ford model where rear-end collisions could damage the gasoline tank, which in some cases also caused fires from ignited gasoline. In the end credits of the film, nonsensical mentions and jokes (so-called "crazy credits") were incorporated, such as "Hey Diddle Diddle - The Cat and the Fiddle", "Foreez - A Jolly Good Fellow" and "This Space For Rent". Val Kilmer sang the songs in the film himself. A soundtrack LP has also been released for the film.
Web links
- Top Secret! in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Top Secret! at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Top Secret! at Metacritic (English)
- Top Secret! in the online film database
- List of German voice actors
Individual evidence
- ↑ Roger Ebert : Top Secret! In: Chicago Sun-Times , January 1, 1984 (English)
- ↑ Top Secret! In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .