After the enormous critical and public success of Jaap Speyer's 'De Jantjes', the director and his star Johan Kaart were set to work together again on another musical comedy. But this time it was to be set in and around The Hague instead of Amsterdam. Unfortunately for them, critics weren't so kind when 'Malle Gevallen' was released, saying Speyer's time directing German comedies had influenced him for the worst and even accusing the film of being 'uncouth and tasteless'.
Kaart appears as Bram van Boven, who's been a fun loving student for at least ten years as the movie starts. He rounds up his two friends Boy de Wit and Hans Rikman to literally chase a group of girls touring Leiden. They follow two of them to the home of cranky old Mr. Smallebroek and, thinking it's the girls home, impulsively rent the flat directly above Smallebroek. They soon find out their mistake, and have to find ways to sneak the girls, Kitty and Toos into their combined bachelor pad without alerting the nosy Smallebroek from now on. They also have a lot of fun annoying the man by making as much noise as possible at all times of the day and night.
While Bram and Boy court Toos & Kitty respectively, Hans bumps into cute secretary Loeki (spilling a pot of ink all over her nice white dress) and of course he immediately falls for her. Both Kitty and Loeki find themselves the object of the annoying Piet Janssen's affections as well, but poor little rich boy Piet proves no match for the wit of our three boys of course. This all leads to a string of silly sequences (and several disguises for Bram). First there is a sailing trip during which Kaart puts on the same crooked eyes expression he used in 'De Jantjes' while posing a boats-man and an old fashioned pistol duel on the beach of Scheveningen where his character Bram shows up in a complete medieval armor.
Originally intended to be a musical, the songs are few and far between, though there is a very quaint sequence where the boys are auditioning women to be their maid during which every line spoken by all the characters rhyme. Strangely enough, there isn't a title number called 'Malle Gevallen', but instead the opening song 'Geen Geld en Toch Geen Zorgen' becomes the film's main theme.
Some spoilers involving the very end coming up:
Despite of all the happy go lucky goings on, the end is not a 100% happy one for all concerned. Boy and Kitty get engaged to each other, but Hans and Loeki are separated by his new job as a reporter in Rome, and our hero Bram even loses his girlfriend Toos because of a silly understanding. This leaves him sitting at the foot of the same statue in Leiden as at the start of the film, so at least the story comes full circle.
End spoilers, on to historical facts:
Watching the film more than 75 years after it was made, it is hard to see what could have been found tasteless by critics of the time. The film may not be laugh out loud funny by today's standards, but is certainly chuckle- worthy when one considers the context of the times in which it was made. Despite the critical backlash, 'Malle Gevallen' did make its money back and was re-released several time, until the Nazi's banned the film in 1942 for unknown reasons (there is nothing anti-German in it) during their occupation of the Netherlands.
7 out of 10
Kaart appears as Bram van Boven, who's been a fun loving student for at least ten years as the movie starts. He rounds up his two friends Boy de Wit and Hans Rikman to literally chase a group of girls touring Leiden. They follow two of them to the home of cranky old Mr. Smallebroek and, thinking it's the girls home, impulsively rent the flat directly above Smallebroek. They soon find out their mistake, and have to find ways to sneak the girls, Kitty and Toos into their combined bachelor pad without alerting the nosy Smallebroek from now on. They also have a lot of fun annoying the man by making as much noise as possible at all times of the day and night.
While Bram and Boy court Toos & Kitty respectively, Hans bumps into cute secretary Loeki (spilling a pot of ink all over her nice white dress) and of course he immediately falls for her. Both Kitty and Loeki find themselves the object of the annoying Piet Janssen's affections as well, but poor little rich boy Piet proves no match for the wit of our three boys of course. This all leads to a string of silly sequences (and several disguises for Bram). First there is a sailing trip during which Kaart puts on the same crooked eyes expression he used in 'De Jantjes' while posing a boats-man and an old fashioned pistol duel on the beach of Scheveningen where his character Bram shows up in a complete medieval armor.
Originally intended to be a musical, the songs are few and far between, though there is a very quaint sequence where the boys are auditioning women to be their maid during which every line spoken by all the characters rhyme. Strangely enough, there isn't a title number called 'Malle Gevallen', but instead the opening song 'Geen Geld en Toch Geen Zorgen' becomes the film's main theme.
Some spoilers involving the very end coming up:
Despite of all the happy go lucky goings on, the end is not a 100% happy one for all concerned. Boy and Kitty get engaged to each other, but Hans and Loeki are separated by his new job as a reporter in Rome, and our hero Bram even loses his girlfriend Toos because of a silly understanding. This leaves him sitting at the foot of the same statue in Leiden as at the start of the film, so at least the story comes full circle.
End spoilers, on to historical facts:
Watching the film more than 75 years after it was made, it is hard to see what could have been found tasteless by critics of the time. The film may not be laugh out loud funny by today's standards, but is certainly chuckle- worthy when one considers the context of the times in which it was made. Despite the critical backlash, 'Malle Gevallen' did make its money back and was re-released several time, until the Nazi's banned the film in 1942 for unknown reasons (there is nothing anti-German in it) during their occupation of the Netherlands.
7 out of 10
