Werner – Beinhart!
Werner – Beinhart! is the first German comedy-comic-film adaption based upon the most successful German comic Werner by "Brösel".
Werner – Beinhart! | |
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Directed by | Niki List (live action)
Gerhard Hahn (animation) Michael Schaack (animation) |
Written by | Ernst Kahl |
Produced by | Bernd Eichinger |
Starring |
Voices (animated scenes):
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Cinematography | Egon Werdin |
Distributed by | Constantin Film |
Release date | 29. November 1990 |
Running time | 93 minutes |
Language | German |
Budget | 8 million Deutsche Mark |
Box office | $24 million[1] |
Production
Shooting took place in Kiel, Flensburg and Berlin between June and September 1990.
The film contains animated sequences that are embedded in those of the live-action sequences, which form the background story.
The football-game-scene is from the comic Werner – Alles klar? (1982), the pipe burst scene (alias Lehrjahre II) derives from the book Werner – Normal ja! (1987), the road work scene (alias Lehrjahre I) is from Werner – Wer sonst? (1983), the TÜV-scene is seen in, Werner – Eiskalt! (1985), the hospital scene is from Werner – Wer sonst? and the eatery-scene derives from Werner – Oder was? (1981) and Werner – Normal ja!.
Plot
The beginning (Live-action scene)
A priest has his car broken down. The car starts running again after he "crossed" it. Later he wanders through a forest where he encounters a bewitched teenager girl calling herself Rumpelstilzchen. His car's registration plates have the letters PAF what means that it is registered in Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm district, lying between Munich and Ingolstadt.
Soccer match on the market (Animated scene)
On a very early morning, Werner throws down a football from his attic flat launching involuntarily a soccer match between the ficitive clubs 1. FC Süderbrarup and Holzbein Kiel (what literally means wooden leg and parodies ths soccer club Holstein Kiel) on the market area. Everything ends up in a mess, especially as the market visitors and stall vendors play the role of the involuntary kickers and the policemen Helmut and Bruno the involuntary referees. Two vendors even have to sacrify their stalls as the goals who find them completely destroyed in the end. The "players" get more and more angry. Bruno the policeman climbs up a street lantern after a chicken vendor got upset at him after his chicken got scared away. In the end, the football lands in a frying pan with sausages where it inflates until it explodes.
The Grim King (Live-action scene)
The scene switches to a cinema where a Grim King encounters the creator Brösel to talk about the movie clip which was shown to him. The narrator tells that the Grim King has got cramps in his laughing muscles making him unable to laugh. Many of his subject testified that the movie clip was bad and not funny at all, mainly because those who found it funny were arrested. Brösel is sentenced to death by beheading unless he succeeds in making the Grim King laugh within three days. Until then he is thrown into a dungeon. Once he breaks his pencil and throws it in the corner, suddenly the bewitched girl appears. She grants him a magic pen under the condition that he fulfills her one special wish once he gets out. She advertises that the Grim King would "piss himself from laughing".
Plumber trainee - Part I (Animated scene)
Werner works as a plumber trainee together with the journeyman Eckhardt in the company of the clumsy Master Röhrich. They get an order to repair the heating of Mrs. Hansen who easily gets in rage. Upon arrival her neighbour, Mrs. Gloer reminds them to wipe their shoes off as she has just cleaned the floor. Werner, who is made to carry all the heavy armature which also includes a sink, ignores her. She yells at him and trips him up with her mop causing to break all the armature. Before starting work, Mrs. Hansen fills up Röhrich with a couple of glasses of liquor. In his tipsy way, Röhrich causes a flooding in Mrs. Hansen's flat as well as in the stairway. He sends Werner to the heating basement to cut the water off, but the basement is locked. Werner asks the dim-witted neighbour Mr. Biernot for the key. Mrs. Gloer scolds him once again about the dirty floor, but she also asks Röhrich to get an endpiece of a mop out of her toilet. His left hand is stuck in the pipes and as he fidgets his other hand he unintentionally pulls the flush chain causing a cesspool having the toilet bowl on his head. Werner again plays the commentator as Röhrich confusedly and repeatedly runs upstairs and jumps down the building.
Visit of Gerd Geldhai (Live-action scene)
Brösel fails making the Grim King laugh and is therefore beheaded until he recognizes that it was just a bad dream. Back to reality, he is waked by his boss Gerd Geldhai (literally money shark) who visits him with his companion Schulz and set him under pressure that he has only four weeks left until the movie has its scheduled premiere. Brösel carelessly asks them to cancel the contract. Geldhai warns Brösel that this would mean he would have to refund him everything he invested into that movie project and that he would kick him out of his small housing. Regarding his motorcycle, Geldhai states that Brösel could not afford even proper shoes if he cancels. At last, Brösel keeps the contract going.
Plumber trainee - Part II (Animated scene)
Werner is late for work and sent by Master Röhrich to a construction site where Eckhardt already waits for him. As his coupling seems broken, Werner tells Master Röhrich that he had to visit a cycle garage first, but Master Röhrich repairs the coupling with a scotch tape and sends Werner with a trailer loaded with the armature to the construction site. On his way he has efforts while driving steeply uphill and, reaching the peak, driving steeply downhill, some small screws fall off his handbrakes so he cannot brake safely and finally the trailer is stuck in the mud on the construction site. Eckhardt sends him to a stall get a crate of beer. Werner tries to use the crane to get the trailer out of the mud. Meanwhile Master Röhrich arrives and uses the portapotty first. As Werner is not skilled to handle a crane he creates some mess on the construction site, until he catches the trailer by the hook and finally lifts the walls of the portapotty unveiling Master Röhrich while he is pooping, making him a laughingstock of Eckhardt and the construction workers. Later, when Werner is seemingly alone in a raw building, he putters around a balloon bomb inflating it until it explodes. Master Röhrich gets full of soot and states that "the Russians have come" and that he wants home. Werner already driving away, sees the destruction over his shoulder, and speaks out loud "What a luck! Tomorrow is vocational school!"
Post office scene (Live-action scene)
Brösel gets an incoming call, replies with a burp and therefore gets a rude answer by Gerd Geldhai. After being asked when he gets his cartoons, Brösel explains that he is just on his way to the post office. Another guy wants to send a parcel to Siberia. While both Brösel and the other guy are distracted by an attractive woman, the post clerk swaps the papers with the destinations of the parcels. In the next scene, a guy in ice-cold Siberia laughs frenetically while he is sitting on the outhouse and reading Werner cartoons. Brösel gets a phone call again from a very angry Gerd Geldhai complaining about a parcel stuffed with hot water bottles.
Moped inspection (TÜV) scene (Animated scene)
Werner arrives at the court of the TÜV (technical inspection for vehicles). He asks the inspektor to register a Wurstblinker ("sausage indicator"). The inspector is somewhat astounded as he imagines that there would be a sausage coming out wagging from the edge of the moped's handle bar. Werner demonstrates that he puts a can with Wieners in the middle of his handle bar. Werner just presses a button - and wiener stuck in the inspector's throat. As the latter says that it tastes a bit stale, Werner adds some mustard. He also shows him the variety of that kind of "indicator" as he can also use canned soups, Labskaus or beans what upsets the inspector more and more who tells Werner to leave. Shortly after, Herbert arrives and wants to register a canholder. The inspector talks to another inspector and they see many things that they state of illegal. After one of them gets hurt by touching an acute tip on Herbert's moped, a fight breaks out between Werner, Herbert and the inspectors insulting each others. In the end, Werner and Herbert leave the TÜV inspection court leaving the inspectors in their exhaust pipe fumes.
Accident scene (Live-action scene)
After failure in sending the cartoons by mail, Brösel decides to bring them himself to Gerd Geldhai to Munich on his motorcycle. He is already close to Munich and has to cross a tunnel which is controlled by a traffic light as only one direction is allowed to cross this tunnel safely. In the opposite direction, a truck driver passes the red light as he is distracted by reading Werner comics while driving. Brösel also passes that tunnel in this moment - and it comes to a crash. In the next scene, Brösel is in hospital. As his drawings are spread somewhere around the place where the accident occurred, he has to create new ones. The nurse, however, takes him his papers and pen away as she claims that he must not move (and therefore not draw anything). Brösel then takes a syringe and rams hit into his leg. The off-speaker than states that "the doctor will keep silence about that, what a smoker's leg can be good for" ...
Hospital scene (Animated scene)
In the next scene, also Werner lies in a hospital and dreams of falling in love into a girl on a tropical island with Hawaiian music. The dream scene is suddenly interrupted, when a nurse enters the room and wakes him up. She washes him with a sponge - also around his private parts - then brushes his teeth and then sticks him a thermometer into his mouth. Then she goes out leaving the light. Werner spits out the thermometer and turns the light off. Right when he falls asleep another nurse - a fat one - enters his room and argues as he did not use the urine bottle, instead he used the toilet despite of being told not to do. He sends her out in a very rude way, what leads her telling that to the chief physician. She also leaves the light on. Another nurse enters the room. Werner yells at her so loud that she loses all her clothes, including bra and underwear. The fat nurse prepares an enema and her colleague some sedative shots for Werner. Werner shuts off the light and finally sleeps again, when he is waked by the cleaning lady hoovering his room and finally destroying all his beer getting the hospital almost flooded. Meanwhile, a group of students together with their professor visits the hospital. Werner takes the chance to get out of that hospital. In that mess, the syringes start to fly through the air hitting the students and the professor at their noses. The fat nurse gets the enema herself. Outside, Andy is already waiting with his moped. They ride to the beach where his other friends celebrate a party. Werner immediately falls asleep due to his lack of sleep in the hospital. Dieter prepares a strong coffee while Let's Dance by Chris Montez is played. And Werner gets instantly awake and fit.
Cinema scene (Live-action scene) and Pub scene (Animated scene) combined
Finally, the movie is broadcast as premiere in a cinema close to Munich Sendlinger Tor. The cinema is full.
The animated scene shows Werner and Andy who are already tipsy, entering a pub. This pub is led by a barkeeper with speaking with a Berlin dialect. First, they order beer with strawberry yoghurt. The yoghurt is solid so that it does not mix with the beer. Right after drinking out the beer they order a sugar egg (raw eggs stirred with sugar). As that rude barkeeper does not know how to prepare it he just serves them just the raw eggs. Just in that time Dieter and the cycle gang enters the pub. Dieter is very impatient and orders six times Säft ("Saft" what means juice), although they mean beer. The dim-witted barkeeper thinks they literally order juice and so the barkeeper discusses what kind of juice they want to order. This ends Dieter freaking out and making the pub building partly explode.
While the movie is running, Brösel - still wearing crutches - has to go to the bathroom. While he is using a urinal, he hears some heavy diarrhea sounds from a toilet stall. After smirking first at it, that he pays more and more attention at him. Then the door opens with a scared guy - and then Brösel encounters that bewitched girl from his dream again. She reminds him that he had promised her to fulfill her one wish, even though it was just a dream. She just wants to marry him.
Final: Wedding scene (Live-action scene)
Brösel finally marries that bewitched girl and they encounter the priest from the beginning. When the latter asks the girl about the name she requires to guess her name. The third time he recalls when he encountered her in the forest where she called herself Rumpelstilzchen. When he mentions that name, she screeches "The devil told you!" and gets transformed into a pretty and neat woman. The priest believes in that "wonder" and the community starts singing.
After the wedding night Brösel gets a call by Gerd Geldhai, that he should start working on a sequel of the movie.
Reception
With 4.9 million tickets sold, it was the third most successful movie in theaters in Germany in 1990, behind Look Who's Talking and Pretty Woman, and one of the highest-grossing German films in the 1990s with a gross of $24 million (€19.7 million).[1][2]
Music
- The soundtrack-themesong by Torfrock peaked number 1 in the beginning of 1991 in the German singles charts.
Sequels
The film was followed by four sequels:
- Werner – Das muß kesseln!!! (1996)
- Werner – Volles Rooäää!!! (1999)
- Werner – Gekotzt wird später! (2003)
- Werner – Eiskalt! (2011)
The first sequel, Werner – Das muß kesseln!!! (Werner - That's Hot), was the most expensive German animated film of all-time, with a cost of $12 million (8 million Deutsch mark). It opened on 633 screens on Thursday, June 27, 1996.[1] The sequel performed better than the original, with 1.5 million admissions in its first week, the second-highest ever for a German film at the time, and almost 5 million admissions in total, generating a gross of €24 million.[2]
External links
References
- Kirschbaum, Erik (June 28, 1996). "Senator Hopes High For German Toon". Daily Variety. p. 8.
- "InsideKino – Besucher deutscher Filme in Deutschland" (in German). Retrieved May 20, 2020.