Bachelor of Hearts

One thing is clear from the get-go in Bachelor of Hearts: In European films, Hardy Kruger was seen for the cutie-pie he was. Americans could rarely get over a German actor's nationality (hence why Curd Jurgens probably wasn't considered for The Sound of Music), so Hardy often played Nazis - and we wonder why he retired early. But when the films weren't geared primarily towards Americans, his characters were pretty hunky! In Bachelor of Hearts, he plays a German exchange student new to England and her customs during his first year at university. Immediately, he puts the moves on the first girl he sees, despite her already having a boyfriend, and she has to force herself to resist him. He's charming, he's adorable, and it's a shame America didn't get the memo.

If you're not in it for the eye candy, however, you shouldn't be in it at all. This is a very silly movie, akin to America's High Time, but without the seriousness of the adults. It's just a gigantic advertisement for parents not to pay for their kids' college educations. They take four years, all paid for by Mommy and Daddy, to party, sleep around, and participate in stupid hazing rituals. Hardly anyone knuckles down and wants to learn, as you can see in this movie. Even Hardy, bless his heart, gets criticized repeatedly when he tries to stick to his studies. One of his professors literally says, "You can read books in Germany." Instead, to truly get an education, he has to party, sleep around, and participate in stupid hazing rituals. However, the movie isn't a total bust. Hardy is extremely cute.

Instead of the usual storyline of a young American's trials and tribulations, while studying at Oxbridge, the director had decided to twist the narrative by casting the young, and then up and coming German actor, Hardy Kruger as the Teutonic, blue eyed and blond exchange student, whose naivety and ignorance about the cultural and esoteric mysteries and nuances of Cambridge University life, ruffles the feathers of the stuffy, snooty middle class fellow students. The major problem here is that Kruger looks as if he's in his thirties, ditto his fellow student, lantern jawed, and plummy voiced Ronald Lewis. Even Kruger's romantic interest, Sylvia Sims, the 1950's 'English Rose' of the Rank film studios, looks less like a young student, but at least her charm and looks kept me awake during the film which was tedious in the extreme. The film is more about highlighting caricatures of undergraduate life, where much boozing and 'wenching' goes on in jazz clubs and where students seem to behave like wayward juveniles as they perpetually get themselves into scrapes with the college authorities. The director presents Kruger and Lewis as undergraduate stereotypes of young men behaving badly as they engage in 'silly antics' in their 'free time' and during the annual bore, the so called 'rag week.' The usual 'ho ho ho' climbing over walls by our two 'Romeo's' after midnight to reach their student accommodation while drunk, is another tick boxing exercise by the director in presenting students as immature and innocent twerps, who find their sole pleasure in extra curricular activities! Yes, there were the delightful views of students punting along the river, but the whole film was yawn inducing. It was definitely a second feature and forgettable film.

Wolf Rilla did his best with this film, but it ended up looking like a fluffy cake in the shape of Cambridge, well beyond its sell by date. A few years earlier it may have worked but by 1958 it appeared still looking pretty visually but stale. John Osborne had written ' Look Back in Anger ' and from America ' Blackboard Jungle ' and ' Rebel Without A Cause ' had shaken up the insides of schools. But here in this meandering film the relentless high jinks of privileged youth and secret ceremonies still reigned causing mock havoc. Throwing Hardy Kruger as an exchange student in a mock execution into the relentlessly punting river was still ' fun ' and as the British take a long time in growing up it may still continue. Sylvia Syms is utterly wasted as Kruger's girlfriend ( not that much chemistry showed ) and Ronald Lewis tried to be funny as a fellow student but they all must have known that there was very little to do with their roles. The one plot highlight was Kruger on a hunting search for women for his fellow students to take to a ball, and that should have been cut out or shortened. It was boring and sexist and the ultimate insult was that the ' girls ' once rounded up like cattle seemed to like their moronic companions. I dreaded a joke about the Germans and ' the War ' but Rilla fortunately avoided that, and I give it a 5 for showing a boringly normal German, unlike the usual stereotyped Germans in the endless War heroics cluttering up the British film industry. For that one important element the film was refreshing.

German exchange student (Hardy Kruger) comes to the fictional University College, Cambridge. A collection of stereotypical but enjoyable Varsity capers ensue. Sylvia Syms is positively radiant - the proverbial English Rose. She has a knack for bringing the film to life whenever she appears on screen. The remainder of the players form a very predictable bunch of undergrads in their mid-twenties and profs in ttheir mid-eighties. Lovely views of the City, and one or two well orchestrated set-pieces (the raid on all-female college Girton is notable) make this effortless viewing.

With a screenplay by Leslie Bricusse and Frederic Raphael and terrific color photography by Geoffrey Unsworth, Wolf Rilla's "Bachelor of Hearts" is a one-of-a-kind grandiose sort of rom-com. Loaded with physical comedy, it's shot on location at Cambridge and provides an exaggerated look at the strange rituals and behavior of those upper class twits that Monty Python made such fun of a decade later.

International superstar Hardy Kruger is constantly the center of attention, providing an outsider's point-of-view mixing with his fellow students at Cambridge University. Sort of the steady center of the movie, Sylvia Syms plays his #1 romantic interest from a nearby Girls College, playing straight to Hardy no matter how outrageous his antics become.

Director Wolf Rilla (who made the classic "Village of the Damned"") pulls out all the stops, including documentary-style footage of the campus events with students as extras, and even mixes in plenty of sex comedy for Hardy to frantically execute. Among the many pretty girls in the cast is a fun turn by Barbara Steele, affecting a high-pitched goofy voice worthy of Carol Kane.