Die Pinups und ein heißer Typ

This film originated in the invention of a synthetic girl group called The Pinups. The music producer later successfully used this formula to devise Milli Vanilli. The Pinups, which only existed in a studio, were booked to tour Germany to promote their album. The idea was to make a film to make the group known to create interest in the album and tour to support it. To this effect three 'actresses' were hired in L.A. and flown to Frankfurt and styled and trained to be The Pinups' I.e. To dance sexily and lip synch. A director was hired, Yoel Zilberg, an Israeli who was best known for MY MOTHER THE GENERAL. There was an existent script available. I believe it had been co-written by Zilberg and his partner Eli Tovar, with its locus changed from Tel Aviv to Berlin (filmmaking was heavily subsidized in the Republic and in Berlin). The producer, Artur Brauner's son read the script and protested that it was utterly unacceptable as a 'youth movie'. There were brassiere jokes. I was writing jungle movies in Munich at the time. A script I had written had attracted the producers attention. I used voluminous amounts of profanity in it and he thought- Ah, someone who knows how to talk to youth. The picture was about a hustling record promoter in Berlin trying to sell his new band while burning the candle at both ends. It was to star Horst Buchholz. Two of my jokes, (I've forgotten which ones) survived into the final film. Horst Buchholz did not. He was replaced by a very pretty, very wooden, much younger actor. I believe the film was written by the choreographer and his mother (I'm not joking). The film wasn't released except for one week in Frankfurt as a courtesy to the music producer. The theatre was the type where the patrons sat on high stools at tables from which they drink beer. On the last day I checked at the box office to find out how many paying customers there had been for the week and was told 'fourteen'.

I'm a long-time aficionado of classic Eurotrash films, which generally means a time period between the later 60s until the middle (and occasionally later) 80's. It was a kind of odd twilight period for many things, but especially for the weirder/ridiculous and yes trashy side of films in Europe (where I live, though am not from but moved to because of a number of reasons... the legacy of trash was a big factor though!). The Israeli/German production "Die Pinups und ein heißer Typ" ("The Pinups and a Hot (Guy)") fits right in the timeline and fully encompasses what I love about this.. well, not "genre" but it sort of is in its own way. This really was just meant to be a normal type of "film" but ends up with the "trash" tag as it generally is a bit exploitative and technically a "mess", but in SUCH the right way that it goes into another category than it originally expected.

I'll do a brief overview of the plot as it's pretty simple, basically this down-on-his-luck German songwriter guy named Fredy (Sascha Hehn) really wants to have a hit and decides he wants to have a girl-group make it happen for him. He recruits various misfit girls (who are all randomly American though somehow just in Germany because.. whatever) to be in the group. His main hit he really wants to make happen is honestly the worst song of the whole movie (though by the end of the film it finally gets a better version done of it), "Where Are You Now Number One". After failing at getting audiences to care, Fredy and the other main guy Rolf (Moti Giladi) decide to go "New Wave" to make the girls seem "hip" and "now". This becomes the best decision they could have made, especially for us as viewers, because this is when the film really kicks in (around the 40 minute mark). When the girls get their new wave makeover they bust out one of the best songs of the film, "New Wave Lover" (which is one of the alternate English titles of the film), this song is GOLD. Totally catchy and I keep rewatching it rather frequently. Same goes for a song that shows up a bit later with the girls going full-crazy for the performance of the song "Neon" which is fantastic. Both songs are absolute highlights, in addition to the other big heat number "Money & Love", which is more minimal (the lyrics are just 2 words). Also noteworthy are Moti Giladi's impressions of various people, including Billy Joel and amazingly Amanda Lear!! Of course there's a tacky trans-joke made about her but that was sadly typical of the time.

Anyway, to cut a long story short Fredy is an oddly difficult guy and for reasons that aren't particularly clear blows up at the girls rather often and this becomes a problem later on. I won't give spoilers but I don't think it necessarily matters. The main things to care about are the musical numbers anyway, I've honestly just gone back and replayed the 3 hottest songs over and over. I'd suggest trying to search for the actual album "The Pinups" and wonder where all this somehow went wrong and never actually got anywhere it seems. Perhaps there had to be a large number of years for it to be lost and rediscovered to be appreciated, which can often be the case. Still, I think it's totally worth watching!