Summer Night Fever (1978) Poster

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Likable 70's German sex comedy
lazarillo21 October 2010
The English-language title here is rather unfortunate since, aside from a few disco scenes, this is actually a very different movie from the big Hollywood film "Saturday Night Fever" (and I actually liked it better). This German movie may have been inspired by the contemporary Israeli/West German "Lemon Popsicle" films. But whereas those movies were often set in the 50's and focused on teen characters trying to "lose it", this film is set in the swinging 70's where free-wheeling teenage sex is pretty much taken for granted.

Two teen buddies head off for a holiday in Ibiza, Spain. One of of them has to bring along his shy,virginal sister. On holiday, the friends have quite a reversal of sexual fortunes--the shy, wallflower ends up having a ridiculous amount of sex while the smooth ladies' man has difficulty scoring, but does find himself falling in love with his friend's initially gawky sister (perhaps not too surprising since she's played by the very gorgeous Olivia Pascal).

Obviously, the main point of this film is to get a lot of sexy girls naked. And at that it certainly succeeds. The younger girls, Pascal and Betty Virges, were in any number of films like this in the late 70's ("The Fruit is Ripe", "Vanessa",etc.), but this one of the best I've seen. Some of the "older" actresses (like one character's math teacher, who he manages to score with), meanwhile, were veterans of the early 70's German "sex report" films. And fairly famous Italian actor Gianni Garko even shows up in a small role. This movie is more successful than most of its ilk because the young characters are likable and fairly believable (except for Pascal as a gawky virgin at the beginning). The (mostly non-disco)songs are also kind of catchy, and they surprisingly include Jerry Rafferty's "Baker Street", which became a BIG hit in America (and will make any legitimate release of this on DVD pretty legally dicey). And once again we have a character in a German sex comedy wearing an illicit Mickey Mouse t-shirt (what was with that, anyway?).Still, this is a surprisingly entertaining and likable movie and I'd like to see it not be consigned to the dustbin of celluloid history.
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2/10
Completely irrelevant
Horst_In_Translation14 July 2016
Warning: Spoilers
"Summer Night Fever" is a West German film from 1978, so this one will have its 40th anniversary soon. The director is Sigi Rothemund (under a pseudonym) and if you know a bit about German films, you know what this means. The probability with him is that it is unlikely that this is a quality movie and this one is no exception for Rothemund. It runs for 100 minutes almost and dragged from start to finish. The actors are pretty weak and nobody from the cast stands out in any way. But the worst is really the script. It's completely boring. It basically feels like a documentary, as if we are watching random tourists on Ibiza for over 1.5 hours and nothing of interest happens, just every day life. This would be fine if it felt authentic in anyway, but actually it#s embarrassing how they are trying to make this film somewhat relevant in terms of 1970s culture and society. The title is of course linked closely to the super successful American movie "Saturday Night Fever" from one year earlier. This connection is also evidence of how this film here lacks individual creativity from start to finish. There is not a single reason to check this one out, not the actors, not the direction and definitely not the (intended, non-existent) comedy or the script. Stay far far away.
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Not so funny overseas teen comedy with T & A
Serpent-52 April 2000
Two guys (one of them is Klaus from SHE'S 19 & READY) goes on a trip to get girl, Klaus's sister has to come along do and almost ruin the whole trip. Good location & production value, pretty girls, and hot disco soundtrack (why is Gerry Rafferty's BAKER STREET in this film? It's not Disco!) centers in a standard overseas teen sex film. Recommended.
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