The 90-minute "Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht" or "When the White Lilacs Bloom Again" is a German color and sound film from 1953, so this one is already over 60 years old. It was written by a trio and the director is Hans Deppe, a filmmaker who also worked a lot with Heinz Erhardt. But this one we have here falls under the very generic German films from the 1950s that deal with romance and music for the most part and occasionally a bit of drama about fatherhood too. The lead actor is Willy Fritsch, a fairly big star in Germany at this point, but it was already later in his career, approximately the last decade of his filmmaking career had begun. Female lead is Magda Schneider and it becomes obvious here once again that she does not possess half the star power of her daughter Romy. Romy is also the one I am referring to in the title. She was 14 or 15 when this film came out and it was her very first acting role and far from the only occasions where the character she played was the daughter by the character her real mother Magda played. About the plot and story, there is not too much to tell. I did not find it very interesting or inspired. And this is also what brings the film down ultimately. If there is a reason to watch this one it is the very young Romy Schneider and Fritsch to a lesser extent and also it has legendary German actor Götz George considerably under the age of 20 in his very first film performance and sadly he died just a few days before I wrote this review. But I do not recommend checking it out. Thumbs down.
