Madame and Her Niece (1969)
"Madame und ihre Nichte" (original title)

Michelle De Winter lives the good life, wining and dining with only the richest men who are fortunate to cross her path. Her daughter Yvette, whom Michelle insists on introducing as her '... See full summary »

Director:

Eberhard Schröder

Writers:

Guy de Maupassant (novel), Werner P. Zibaso

Stars:

Ruth-Maria Kubitschek, Edwige Fenech, Fred Williams

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ruth-Maria Kubitschek	...	Michelle
Edwige Fenech	...	Yvette
Fred Williams	...	Peter von Hallstein
Rainer Penkert	...	Jochen Reiter
Karl Walter Diess	...	Dr. Fink
Ini Assmann	...	Amelie
Valerie Antelmann	...	Sophie
E.O. Fuhrmann	...	Juwelier
Robert Naegele	...	Karl
Ann Hellstone	...	Karin
Isolde Lehner
Hansi Lohmann	...	Masseuse
Laurence Bien
Dean Finnie
Frank Müller-May

Storyline

Michelle De Winter lives the good life, wining and dining with only the richest men who are fortunate to cross her path. Her daughter Yvette, whom Michelle insists on introducing as her 'niece', is a fashion model. She is saving herself for the right man, despite the fact that she is part of the free love generation and lives with a group of promiscuous creative types. While Michelle is searching for a new millionaire playboy, Yvette falls for the handsome Peter Von Hallstein. She asks the fatherly Dr. Fink to help her come up with a scheme to get Peter to propose to her.

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Plot Keywords:

foreign language adaptation | gold digger | hippie | sex | female nudity | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

West Germany

Language:

German

Release Date:

9 May 1969 (West Germany)

Also Known As:

Madame and Her Niece

Company Credits

Production Co:

Hape-Film Company GmbH, Rapid Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min 82 min (VHS)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

User Reviews

Nickle and Dime novel

Based on the novel 'Yvette' by Guy de Maupassant, this early example of German Sexploitation is very tame by today's standards. In fact, it plays out exactly like one of those pocket books teenage girls swoon over: Yvette (Edwige Fenech with her stunning black hair and late Sixties Egyptian style make-up) is a successful, sexy fashion model, yet despite living in what seems to be a very sexually active hippie commune, she remains absolutely chaste until she's met the right man.

On the other hand, her mother Michelle De Winter (Ruth-Maria Kubitschek) is a gold digger praying on wealthy men in order to keep up her exuberantly rich life style. Michelle even goes as far as to pretend Yvette is her niece instead of her daughter, hence the title. Funnily enough, this charade doesn't quite hold up in the Italian version of the title, "Mia Nipote, La Vergine" since Nipote can mean both niece as well as granddaughter.

Fred Williams plays Peter von Hallstein, son of a prominent Bruce Wayne type millionaire playboy and like his father he enjoys getting massaged by the indoor pool and wearing tuxedo's. When Yvette falls for Peter like a ton of bricks, she asks the very hands on 'father figure' Dr. Fink (Karl Walter Diess) for advice instead of her mother, which of course leads to all sorts of misunderstandings and problems.

Along the way we get to see a lot of groovy and hip Sixties fashions being photographed, being flaunted in discotheques and being taken off at wild pool parties (compete with inflatable chairs and those silly silver orbs floating around). The reason why all these pool parties occur indoors is because the entire film is set in winter. Dr. Fink's not so cunning plans continuously backfire on Peter and almost end in disaster when Michelle begins to take a liking to the young man. Eventually the good doctor has to get an entire hospital to play along with one of his schemes in order to bring the young couple back together.

The version commented on here had quite a few scenes missing and only ran a brief 62 minutes. Therefore it is possible that the full version has some more depth to it. A more likely scenario however is that the longer version has a bit more nudity. Though the sight of young Edwige in a white see-through shirt at one of the rowdy parties would be enough for any red-blooded male.

7 out of 10