"Puenktchen und Anton" (Erich Kaestner) - a German movie review by Robert Steven Mack

I have always enjoyed going to the Goethe Institute in Los Angeles, and the German movie selections they offer. Recently I had picked up the film “Puenktchen und Anton.” It isn't that I had never borrowed that particular movie before. In truth, I had. And it isn't that I had seen the film before, because I hadn’t. So, as you can imagine, after checking the darn thing out at least a dozen times, I was determined that I watch it this time around; I was feeling determined to seize the opportunity.

“Puenktchen und Anton” is a 1954 black-and-white German film based on the esteemed novel by Erich Kaestner. (A little trivia: Kaestner wrote the famous novel “Das doppelte Lottchen” – on which “The Parent Trap” movies are based.) Days went by and time rushed out the window at undetectably vicious speed. Again, it looked like I would never see the film that had been on my mind for so long… It was Thursday evening and I still had not watched that movie. After a day of sailing, I was ready to write my review on “The Son of Flubber” which I had long put of. Sitting down, I suddenly noticed something: not a cursed word would come out of my head. My brain was fried! I told my mother, Diana, about my state of despair: I felt this exasperating desire to write about “Flubber” but my brain feels like rubber. She soothingly suggested that I watch the German movie I had been waiting so long to see - “Puenktchen und Anton.” In soothe, I didn't feel like a German movie tonight – thinking that it would be too much mental gymnastics and concentration; German movies can be hard to understand. Yet, the dilemma was that the next day I would have to return the movie. Besides what harm could it do? So I watched it – without regret! I was immediately captured by the lively fresh attitude the film had to offer as well as the scandalous antics of its two main characters, “Puenktchen und Anton.” The humor was so exuberantly displayed and presented.

I am told that my father came home from work while I was watching the movie. I didn't notice, I was too busy watching “Puenktchen and Anton” and understanding almost every word!

Copyright 2011 by Robert Steven Mack (all rights reserved!)