The Last Pedestrian (1960) Poster

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7/10
West German Comedy with Heinz ERHARDT and Christine KAUFMANN
ZeddaZogenau8 November 2023
Lovesick trip to the Black Forest? - West German film comedy with Heinz Erhardt and GOLDEN GLOBE winner Christine Kaufmann

Finally holidays! The somewhat aging Gottlieb Singer (Heinz Erhardt), archivist at the trendy Zeitblick magazine in beautiful Hamburg, is, like Bolle, looking forward to his hiking holiday in the Black Forest. On the train, however, a lovely older lady (Käthe Haack) puts her precocious granddaughter in the care of him. And this Kiki Cornelius (Christine Kaufmann) has it all behind her ears. Instead of continuing on to boarding school, she follows the die-hard bachelor, whose relaxing hiking vacation now runs into one complication after the next. Kiki pulls out all the stops, gambles away all the money in the casino, picks up two young students (Michael Lenz and the singer Peter Wegen) and doesn't take the truth too seriously. In the meantime, the unsuspecting Gottlieb sends his friend Hiss (Werner Finck), editor at Zeitblick, his photos, which of course also feature the enchanting Kiki, to be developed. He uses the recordings to create a whole series about the "last pedestrian", which promptly hits like a bomb and becomes a sales success for the ailing magazine. But that's just where the problems for Gottlieb and the little brat begin...

What turbulent fun! With humor and catchy singing, beautiful images from the Black Forest and harmless misunderstandings, this film, released in 1960, still breathes the spirit of the 1950s. The entertaining film was directed by Wilhelm Thiele in the film studios in Göttingen. In one scene you can see Heinz Erhardt walking down the stairway in the bustling neighboring town of Kassel.

With Christine Kaufmann (1945-2017), the comedy star had a busy colleague at his side in those days. The year before she played at 14 years old! The enchanting lover of muscle god Steve Reeves (1926-2000) in "The Last Days of Pompeii". A year after the hike with Heinz Erhardt, she played the wife of the German blonde Joachim Hansen in "Via Mala". After that, she was ready for Hollywood and her momentous marriage to Tony Curtis (1925-2010).

By the way, Käthe Haack (1897-1986), who played the mother of the title hero in the outstanding film version of "Emil und die Detektive / Emil and the Detectives" (1931), can be seen as Kiki's trusting grandmother.

The appearance of the magnificent Trude Herr (1927-1991) as a cheeky Rhinelander on the train is obligatory. The Cologne veteran had already appeared in front of the camera with Heinz Erhardt for "Drillinge an Bord" and "Natürlich die Autofahrer / Naturally the Drivers" (both 1959). When the old Erhardt films were shown on television in 1984 and surprisingly (for the television producers) achieved ratings records, Trude Herr in particular benefited from the renewed popularity (Heinz Erhardt had unfortunately died five years earlier after a long period of suffering). Her health-related move to the Fiji Islands in the summer of 1987, which the die-hard Cologne resident celebrated with her farewell hymn "Niemals geht man so ganz / You never go quite like that," will be unforgettable. Goosebumps still today!
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7/10
The last pedestrian
suchenwi17 June 2011
Warning: Spoilers
My, how the world has changed in the last 50 years. This romantic comedy (with more emphasis on comedy, though it's not cry-out-loud funny) is difficult to understand. Let me try.

The plot is about an elderly office clerk, Mr Sänger, working in a magazine publishing house in Hamburg, who uses his vacations for a train trip to Baden-Baden, and hiking from there across the Black Forest to Konstanz (the city where I happen to live :).

On the train he sits next to Kiki, an adventurous teenage girl, whose grandmother entrusts her to him. In Baden-Baden, she gets off the train with him, instead of changing for the train to Geneva and her boarding school. Instead, they visit the casino and lose about all their money at the roulette table. So she joins him on the hiking trip to Freudenstadt, then Hausach. They travel part of the way with two students in an old Dixi car (I think it was), and Kiki even gets to ride with an Indian maharajah. Sänger is an avid photographer and documents much of the journey, and sends the pictures to his office.

The Zeit-Blick magazine has low sales in the vacation season, so Sänger's pictures and report are pushed to title story status, and many readers get aware of the story, including Kiki's grandmother. Is there a great scandal in the making? Of course not. All ends well and in merriness, as saccharine comedies go. The perennial generation conflict of the young vs. the old gets some exposure, but there is no plausible confrontation, nowhere. This is partly a travelogue, partly a music film, and nothing spectacular. Still, I wasn't bored. Just sometimes bewildered, trying to understand the motives.

The most shocking moment for me was when Sänger walks down the Treppenstraße in Kassel (like I did for years), arrives at his office, looks out of his window and sees busy streetcar traffic - evidently in Hamburg. Talk about filmographical licence...
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4/10
Erhardt the pedestrian Warning: Spoilers
"Der letzte Fussgänger" or "The Last Pedestrian" is a West German movie from 1950, so this one here that runs for slightly under 90 minutes is already over 55 years old. And it stars Heinz Erhardt, the German comedy legend. he made films with focus on car drivers and bike riders and here he gives us his take on pedestrians. Or I should maybe say Wilhelm Thiele gives us his take as he is the writer and director. Some of Erhardt's work from that time was still in black-and-white, but this one here is in color. But enough about him now. His co-star here is Christine Kaufmann, who was only 15 or even younger when this was made and a really big rising star around that time. So German audiences got to see two of the most known faces of the 1950s and 1960s in this film. And I thought the duo had good chemistry in what could even be described as a road movie. Unfortunately, the script was not on par with their performances and there were really not too many interesting moments. It is 100% comedy, but as such I must say it has not aged too well. Oh well, comedy was not Germany's biggest strength around that time and this film is another example. I think Erhardt is really skilled and funny, but even he needs the right material to work with. I give "The Last pedestrian" a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
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