Hot Summer (aka Heisser Sommer)

A group of teenage boys and girls find love and adventure during their summer holiday in this 1967 musical filmed behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. The ten boys and eleven girls meet while hitchhiking to the beaches of the Baltic Sea, and their initial instinct is to terrorize each other with pranks. The two camps converge soon enough, however, for a series of mild flings. A love triangle emerges between a blonde party girl and two boys, leading to a fistfight and a joyride in a stolen fishing boat, but the authorities are forgiving of these youthful indiscretions and the groups remain intact. Heisser Sommer is packed with sprightly pop tunes, colorful dance numbers and an overall veneer of innocence that compares with the "Beach Party" films that were popular in America earlier in the decade. Two featured performers in the ensemble cast, Chris Doerk and Frank Schoebel, were major pop stars in their country at the time of this film's release, as well as husband and wife. Heisser Sommer was a huge hit in East Germany, and the video release features English subtitles for both songs and dialogue.

Heisser Sommer is a unique oddity for American viewers, most of whom will be surprised to see that such a fluffy teen musical could have been made in a country under Communist rule. Despite fresh-faced youngsters in blue jeans and eye shadow, however, the film toes the party line pretty effectively. For the most part, the scenes are played out in groups; everyone dances, swims and travels together, and whenever one of the characters deviates from the group's plan (by staying out all night with a boy or escaping from a makeshift jail), they're quickly chastised and brought back into step. The collectivist message is subtle, but certain, though the East German audience that came out to see Heisser Sommer again and again probably never noticed or cared. The songs are corny orchestrated pop flavored with dashes of country and jazz, but they're undeniably catchy, and the visual flash of twenty-one youngsters cavorting on the beach was obviously exciting enough at the time to make the film a big hit. Modern viewers will see the film differently, as a campy exercise in culture appropriation. When the girls arrive at their living quarters and are told "We fixed up the meeting room in the cooperative for you," there's no doubt that this is a very different kind of beach party. FRED BELDIN