{"id":14671,"date":"2021-08-27T11:28:42","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T15:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=14671"},"modified":"2025-12-03T15:29:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:29:06","slug":"hot-summer-1968","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=14671","title":{"rendered":"Hot Summer-1968"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hot Summer-1968<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Joachim Hasler<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Chris Doerk, Frank Schobel<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #1,173<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed August 27, 2021<\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the strangest films I’ve ever watched, Hot Summer (1968), deserves enormous accolades for even being filmed, produced, and existing.<\/p>\n

You see, it’s the only film (that I know of) to come out of East Germany before the wall came down in 1989 and the unity was gained.<\/p>\n

This is astounding in itself, despite the film’s warts.<\/p>\n

The film’s bubblegum musical nature shatters the starkness and seriousness that envelop the German stereotype. This is an oddity in itself.<\/p>\n

It’s patterned after the trite, summery United States beach movies of the 1950s and 1960s, when teenage characters flocked to the beaches in search of romance with their contemporaries.<\/p>\n

In this film, they do so through song-and-dance numbers led by two East German pop idols of the time, Chris Doerk and Frank Schobel.<\/p>\n

The film’s genre pretty much sucks and isn’t my favorite, but Hot Summer offers a liberal helping of sun, perfect smiles, and beach bodies to keep viewers at least interested.<\/p>\n

The acting is not great, nor is it expected to be.<\/p>\n

As goofy as possible, the musical comedy follows a group of teenage girls heading to the Baltic coast together for their summer vacation.<\/p>\n

Naturally, they wind up meeting a similar group of amorous teenage guys, leading to quarrels and flirtatious competitions played out in lively song-and-dance numbers as the individuals hook up.<\/p>\n

Despite being made during the Cold War, the film contains no political or anti-war messages, which surprised me. If there were any subliminal intentions related to this, like the groups sticking together, they didn’t register with me. I think this is a positive.<\/p>\n

Hot Summer is pure summer fun- nothing more and nothing less.<\/p>\n

The songs are a significant win and rather hummable, especially the title track. It stuck in my head for some time after the film had ended. One character performs a lovely ballad amid a campfire that is quite beautiful and incredibly atmospheric.<\/p>\n

The numbers are mainly professional because real-life pop stars Doerk and Schobel do the bulk of them.<\/p>\n

Still, Hot Summer has a couple of downsides. Why the decision was made to pattern a film, especially one as groundbreaking as being the sole East German film during the Cold War, by using a subject matter as hokey as the summer beach theme is beyond me.<\/p>\n

Indeed, better genres exist to borrow from.<\/p>\n

My hunch is that Joachim Hasler, who directed the film, desired a release from the bleakness of his own culture and saw America as the land of freedom and fun.<\/p>\n

The choreography is a bit stiff, if not downright amateurish, which adds to the bizarre nature of the overall product.<\/p>\n

Indeed, nothing like the exceptional choreography of, say, Oklahoma (1955) or West Side Story (1961); instead, we get rigid dance numbers.<\/p>\n

Kudos to the film for being made at all. Hot Summer (1968) is hardly a great film, but it does hold the viewer’s interest. It contains enough fun and frolics, along with good-looking young people, to avoid being a snooze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hot Summer-1968 Director Joachim Hasler Starring Chris Doerk, Frank Schobel Scott’s Review #1,173 Reviewed August 27, 2021 Grade: B One of the strangest films I’ve ever watched, Hot Summer (1968), deserves enormous accolades for even being filmed, produced, and existing. You see, it’s the only film (that I know of) to come out of East … Continue reading Hot Summer-1968<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,8649,49,8650,813,35,238,8648,47,396],"tags":[62,8652,252,8653,814,67,239,8651,250,397],"class_list":["post-14671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1968-films","category-chris-doerk","category-comedies","category-frank-schobel","category-german","category-foreignfilms","category-foreign-musicals","category-joachim-hasler","category-musicals","category-musical-comedy","tag-1968-movie-reviews","tag-chris-doerk","tag-comedies","tag-frank-schobel","tag-german","tag-foreign-language-films","tag-foreign-musicals","tag-joachim-hasler","tag-musicals","tag-musical-comedy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14671"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22315,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14671\/revisions\/22315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}