"Tante Frieda - Neue Lausbubengeschichten" is the second entry to the West German "Lausbuben" franchise. Officially, there are 5 movies, even if the two final ones have other names. Here we see basically kids pranks on grown-ups for roughly 90 minutes, with some grown-up relationship drama in-between. This film is 50 years old now and Hans Kraus (Lümmel movies, early 60s now) and Friedrich von Thun (early 70s now) are still known in Germany to this date. Also Harald Juhnke was in the first Lausbuben movie, but not in this one.
The director is Werner Jacobs and he also worked with Kraus on the aforementioned Lümmel movies. The writer is Franz Seitz who wrote the script to Academy Award winner "Die Blechtrommel" 15 years later. The Lausbuben movies are based on the autobiographical work of Ludwig Thoma, who wrote about his pranks, but also about his perception of society decades before these films were made. Fittingly, the main character's name is Ludwig as well. This film here is very Bavarian in terms of humor, but also dialect. You recognize this as the "a" is usually pronounced like an "o". And also you see it is from another time as the way people speak in terms of vocabularies and phrases is just completely outdated compared to today's standards. And this also applies to behavior in society. In one scene, a male character puts a hat in front of his and his girl's faces before he kisses her. It was just not appropriate to show affection in public.
However, as a whole, this movie is really only worth a watch for nostalgic value. Even if I liked the boy's presence and comments occasionally, I found none of the pranks really funny, but you should decide for yourself if cutting somebody beard off while he sleeps or putting a hedgehog in the bed or using glue to stick a chair to a teacher's pants is your cup of tea. There's a lot more like this. I personally would not recommend watching these 1.5 hours.
The director is Werner Jacobs and he also worked with Kraus on the aforementioned Lümmel movies. The writer is Franz Seitz who wrote the script to Academy Award winner "Die Blechtrommel" 15 years later. The Lausbuben movies are based on the autobiographical work of Ludwig Thoma, who wrote about his pranks, but also about his perception of society decades before these films were made. Fittingly, the main character's name is Ludwig as well. This film here is very Bavarian in terms of humor, but also dialect. You recognize this as the "a" is usually pronounced like an "o". And also you see it is from another time as the way people speak in terms of vocabularies and phrases is just completely outdated compared to today's standards. And this also applies to behavior in society. In one scene, a male character puts a hat in front of his and his girl's faces before he kisses her. It was just not appropriate to show affection in public.
However, as a whole, this movie is really only worth a watch for nostalgic value. Even if I liked the boy's presence and comments occasionally, I found none of the pranks really funny, but you should decide for yourself if cutting somebody beard off while he sleeps or putting a hedgehog in the bed or using glue to stick a chair to a teacher's pants is your cup of tea. There's a lot more like this. I personally would not recommend watching these 1.5 hours.
