Professor Columbus

"Professor Columbus" is an old librarian, played by German movie veteran Rudolf Platte, who just wants to go to the sea once in his lifetime. So he buys a big ship and takes a boat trip across the North Sea to London, accompanied by a bunch of stoned hippies and chased by the police.

When you read this short description, you might guess that this German movie was filmed back in 1968. There is no real plot at all, but it's rather a collection of slapstick and improvised scenes. The main focus of this early film by German seventies cult director Rainer Erler ("Das blaue Palais", "Fleisch") was to show what's possible beyond the limits of a conservative society - a typical topic of the late sixties like film experiments, mind expansion via drugs, sex, inner journeys, happenings, etc.

In that relation, this movie might be an interesting example to watch (especially a really weird hippie drug orgy on the boat), but otherwise you will get bored soon after a few minutes. Watch out for Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé ("The Fourth Man", "The Living Daylights", "The Fugitive") in one of his early roles, and for Dutch actress Ankie van Amstel as a bare-breasted, carnaby-street-like dressed girl digging coal into the boat's steam engines. Unbelievable!!