The Girl on the Roof

I am very familiar and very fond of the English-speaking version of the film, with the trio Holden-McNamara-Niven... I probably saw it close to 10 times (I even saw the French-dubbed version). I love the witty and sharp dialogue !

So I was very keen on seeing the German version and I finally did.

I was flabbergasted to hear & see that it is exactly the same movie, only in German & with a different cast: The dialogue is translated almost word for word... the acting, down to the minutest voice inflection or gesture is the same... I am almost certain that it was rehearsed thoroughly prior to shooting.

The German cast is good too: Even though I am not a big fan of Johannes Heersters, he was perfectly cast as the middle-aged roué.

Johanna Matz is a bit more restrained than Maggie McNamara: She did not have that cookie verging on the zany quality that McNamara had.

Saying that, I enjoyed it a lot!

For some reason, after making "The Moon is Blue", the film was remade immediately after as "Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach". The cast is a bit different but the stars of the American version make a cameo in this German language one...and vice-versa. Having Otto Preminger as director helped, as he was born in Germany and spoke both English and German. Fortunately, I was able to find the film with English captions on YouTube.

"The Moon is Blue" is a sex comedy where two guys are intent on bedding a virgin. It's not much of a story...and that is why I felt a bit confused that the movie would be remade the way it was. It's not a bad film...just not a particularly good one starring William Holden and Maggie McNamara.

In this version, Hardy Kruger and Johanna Matz star as the same characters and using the same sets. It also has pretty much the same dialog. As a result, there are no surprises and if you've seen one version, you've seen them all. Overall, like the American version, I'd give this one a 6. It's decent but nothing about it begs you to watch both versions.