The people behind the scenes at IMDb share their favorite movies and series of the year.

IMDb Staff Picks: Our Favorites of 2024

From memorable moments to stunning red carpet looks, check out all our favorite photos of 2024.

The Year in Pictures

These big screen releases can now be watched from the comfort of your couch.

Theatrical Releases You Can Stream or Rent

A drunken flirt with another woman upsets the life of a devoted family man on the cusp of his 25th wedding anniversary.

Although Erich Engels&#39; directing leaves something to be desired, this still is a catchy and cheerful Heinz Erhardt vehicle with Camilla Spira as the ideal (grand)mother. The family situation is idealized, but never sentimentalized.  Erhardt is in top form in this one of his best films.

tt0052350

Vater, Mutter und neun Kinder

This movie is soon 60 years old. To put this more into perspective: it was made 4 years after Germany won the World Cup in football for the first time and 15 years after World War II. There is also an adoption reference about World War II near the end of the movie. It was a bit random and out of nowhere and it did not have as much dramatic value to me as they hoped for, but it&#39;s a nice reference in terms of time. Also, it was not really impactful as this film works best as a 100% comedy as it is usually the case with Heinz Erhardt movies. He just has such great acting talent in terms of comedy. he does not even need to say something. His whole aura and body language is so unique already. Of course, his physical presence also helps.<br/><br/>People interested in movies from the 1950s will know him for sure and they may also know some of the other cast members such as Camilla Spira or Willy Millowitsch. Spira plays the wife to Erhardt&#39;s character here and the two have nice chemistry. They are also parents to no less than 9 children (and even more grandchildren at the end), so there is always chaos and something to smile at. One of the main plot points is the alleged cheating by Erhardt&#39;s character which they elaborated on nicely from a comedic point of view. Of course, it is all make-believe and never really happened. Marriage and wedding are core factors of the entire movie and the majority of humor included here is related to this. It is a black and white movie that includes lots of singing by the characters and many jokes based on word-plays, many of them actually still funny in the 21 century. Some of them reminded me of the Otto Waalkes humor for some reason.<br/><br/>In the end, in one scene I was a bit surprised that Lollo Kueppers did not even seem to mind somebody else reading her diary. Or she was just happy about the attention she got. Who knows? In movies these days, the woman would probably have had an anger meltdown if she found out, but not back then. Anyway, it&#39;s a movie which is never really great, but will make you smile on several occasions. It&#39;s one of the last works of writer and director Erich Engels and 90 minutes of harmless fun. Recommended.

User reviews

Vater, Mutter und neun Kinder

CHEERFUL HEINZ ERHARDT VEHICLE

I had a good time watching this

More from this title

More to explore

Recently viewed