you had me at the mini volcanoes

February 14, 2012 7:42 PM

Marika Rökk - Mir ist so langweilig - 1958 - this video has everything, I tell you. Monkeys. Volcanoes. Spaceflight. Sequins.(via World of Wonder)
posted by madamjujujive (30 comments total)

Well, I'm not anymore, that's for sure.
posted by koeselitz at 7:59 PM on February 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

German. English. French. Interpretive dance. Racist overtones. A not quite suggestive enough snake.
posted by maryr at 7:59 PM on February 14, 2012

Don't forget the elephant abuse, that poor little sucker was chained to the floor below your sightline...
posted by HuronBob at 8:05 PM on February 14, 2012

I was quite surprised when the parrot moved. I thought for sure those were stuffed.

Meanwhile, one pant leg leotard? Never works.
posted by maryr at 8:09 PM on February 14, 2012

Mayhaps the spacemen are where Michael Jackson stole the idea for the leany bits of the "Smooth Criminal" moves.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:12 PM on February 14, 2012

Lilly Von Schtupp, the Sci-Fi Years.
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:17 PM on February 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

Nina Hagen's mom ?
posted by hortense at 8:18 PM on February 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

Meanwhile, one pant leg leotard? Never works.

I am mesmerized by the way her outfit tears away, I would like one like that. Such drama!

Mad props to the set builders, really.
posted by madamjujujive at 8:33 PM on February 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

It almost achieved the 'so bad it's good' quality, but then I noticed she was tap dancing in high heels, which seriously distracted me from everything else; and then it ended suddenly and prematurely. Hanging out the side of the spaceship? You know it wouldn't really be over until that other pant leg was gone...
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:50 PM on February 14, 2012

I'm only 3 minutes in and had to comment about the sets, costumes and that brilliant rotating spaceflight effect. I love, love love this so much.
posted by mediareport at 8:53 PM on February 14, 2012

God I hate doing this...but...

You know it wouldn't really be over until that other pant leg was gone she was naked
posted by HuronBob at 8:55 PM on February 14, 2012

My god, that was atrociously great.

Must...refrain...from sharing....info.....about....Rokk's.........Nazi-era stardom...
posted by mediareport at 9:12 PM on February 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Monkeys. Volcanoes. Spaceflight. Sequins.

So, Scientology then.
posted by scalefree at 9:19 PM on February 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

Mayhaps the spacemen are where Michael Jackson stole the idea
The glorious Marika Rökk (at 75) as Michael Jackson

Wunderbar! I've watched about 20 Rökk clips now and yes, those sets are wonderful - here are a couple more Ja das Temperament and Opernparodie (fantastic performance in this one).
posted by unliteral at 9:32 PM on February 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yeah, way down the rabbit hole now. She's incredibly athletic. Damn if this isn't the most fun minute of movie choreography I've seen in years.

Bonus steamy girl-girl action at 1:15 in this one.
posted by mediareport at 10:15 PM on February 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

Mediareport's link is toothsome as well. Unlike Riefenstahl, Frau Rökk seems to fall into the same category as Wodehouse.
What a dancer, man.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:40 PM on February 14, 2012

Big ups. Fantastische!
posted by Wolof at 12:10 AM on February 15, 2012

Germanic Ginger Rogers meets H.R. Pufnstuf... on the moon! (And with better set design than Star Trek)

+99 Luftballons!
posted by Davenhill at 12:24 AM on February 15, 2012

madamjujujive has a direct line to the internet gods.
posted by pracowity at 1:50 AM on February 15, 2012 [3 favorites]

Nice! The good old entertainment, so much mellow and romantic than modern day violent crap.
posted by hsogorop at 2:58 AM on February 15, 2012

Incredible. This is going straight on my Weimar/German film tumblr. "Eine Nacht im Mai" (1938!) isn't half bad either, but alas, no space flight.
posted by muckster at 4:38 AM on February 15, 2012 [2 favorites]

Ha. Just having heard her archaïc pronunciation it's no surprise to me that she made films during WWII.
I think the trope of clothes progressively being torn off goes back to a US WWII era comic.
posted by joost de vries at 4:40 AM on February 15, 2012

Wikipedia:

In 1934, Rökk was offered a contract with the Universum Film AG (UFA) in Germany, where she became one of the most famous filmstars of the time, performing in operetta movies like Leichte Kavallerie, Der Bettelstudent or Gasparone together with Johannes Heesters. She had her final breakthrough with a double role in Kora Terry, a 1940 film directed by her future husband Georg Jacoby with several dance interludes quite revealing at that time. In the same year, Rökk appeared in the propaganda film Wunschkonzert by Eduard von Borsody (as herself), followed by her performance in Georg Jacoby's Women Are Better Diplomats (Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten, UFA's first Agfacolor motion picture) in 1941, together with Willy Fritsch.

After World War II, she received a profession ban, but was rehabilitated in 1947 and could continue her movie career.

posted by muckster at 4:50 AM on February 15, 2012

Marika Rökk was the Lady Gaga / Madonna of the 1950's in Germany ...
posted by homodigitalis at 5:48 AM on February 15, 2012

Frau Rökk seems to fall into the same category as Wodehouse.

She certainly has that classic eagerness to please of the True Entertainer (you can still see it in that Michael Jackson clip when she was 75).

If anyone's interested, I found a meaty discussion of Wunschkonzert ("Request Concert"), a Goebbels-created film about the popular radio series that united Germans before and during the war, here.

Yes, I do find Nazi-era popular culture fascinating. Doesn't everyone?
posted by mediareport at 6:00 AM on February 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

Is it just me, or is she a dead ringer for Amy Poehler?
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 6:28 AM on February 15, 2012

"It is boring for one. It is not this or that being that we are bored by. It is not we who, on the occasion of this particular situation, are ourselves bored - rather: it is boring for one (Es ist einem langweilig). It is not this or that being within easy reach in this particular situation which tellingly refuses itself, but rather all those beings which precisely envelop us in the situation recede into an indifference.

Yet not only all beings in whatever specific situation we happen to be in, wherever this 'it is boring for one' arises, but rather the 'it is boring for one' itself explodes the situation and places us in the full expanse of whatever is in each case manifest as a whole to this specific Dasein as such, in each case has been manifest, and in each case could be. There is a telling refusal on the part of beings as a whole, and this in turn not merely in one particular respect, in our looking retrospectively at something particular, or in the prospect of something particular that we wish to undertake with these beings. Rather these beings refuse themselves as a whole in the said expanse in every respect, altogether in prospect and in retrospect. In this fashion beings become indifferent as a whole."

M. Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics (McNeil and Walker, trans.) 143.

posted by rudster at 7:00 AM on February 15, 2012

This video has brought me unspeakable joy. That is all.
posted by ChaoticIndustry at 8:04 AM on February 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

The "Ja das Temperament" video was fun, particualarly the dance role reversal part - Frau Rökk doing all those lifts of the feeble bookseller. But did she really manage to gather her legs back up from a split so effortlessly? The physics just seems wrong.
posted by of strange foe at 9:58 AM on February 15, 2012

I am mesmerized by the way her outfit tears away, I would like one like that. Such drama!
Quite likely inspired by the British WWII comic The Misadventures of Jane. The misadventures would inevitably lead to parts of her clothing being torn off or other mishaps that would result in partial nudity.
posted by joost de vries at 8:39 PM on February 16, 2012 [1 favorite]