Looking for Musicals to see for an ICM challenge,I found a review for a quirky-sounding German flick, but was sadly unable to find it anywhere. Gathering up Musicals to view in the oncoming week, I got very lucky and stumbled on the movie (with Eng Subs!) Which led to me visiting the haunted castle.The plot:Bricked into a castle, a group of thieves die and turn into ghosts. Whilst building work is done on the property 100's of years later, the wall is knocked down,and the ghost are freed. Believing they need to make up for their misdeeds,the ghosts start helping heiress Charlotte to keep the place neat and tidy. Trying to deal with the debt that her dad has left it with, Charlotte soon becomes spooked of losing all she owns.View on the film:Done as a sequel to Das Wirtshaus im Spessart, the screenplay by Günter Neumann & Heinz Pauck gives a few nods to the first movie, but smartly decide to make this a film that can stand on its own. Going for some dark satirical songs from the ghosts about the last remaining Nazis, the writers' strike a fine "Family Friendly" atmosphere, via satirical jokes and raunchy asides for the adults, and wacky ghost action for the kids.Although some of the wires are visible, director Kurt Hoffmann & cinematographer Günther Anders mask the limitations with a cheerful atmosphere, where the towering Gothic castle allowing Hoffmann to send the camera gliding round the corridors, which shake with "ghostly" wire work causing funny slap-stick scenes of everything being pushed around. Showing an eye for style in the Musical numbers, Hoffmann makes the appearances of the ghosts impressive, with neon outlines to their headless state giving the wise-cracking ghosts a spooky edge. Trying to keep the family castle, the pretty Liselotte Pulver gives a very good performance as Charlotte,thanks to Pulver making her a damsel who needs no ones help,and also giving Charlotte a comedic grin, in welcoming ghosts to the haunted castle.

"Das Spukschloß im Spessart" or "The Haunted Castle" is a West German film from 1960, so this one had its 55th anniversary last year and it is the second film from the Spessart series. Lilo Pulver returns and there are more familiar faces in here, for example director Kurt Hoffmann. I watched this one right after having seen the original first film from a couple years earlier and while I already felt the first wasn't memorable at all, I must say that this sequel is even weaker, clearly inferior on many occasions. It runs for roughly 100 minutes too and focuses mostly on the areas comedy, romance and music. There is more music than in the first. And there is also a slight ounce of horror in here. But it's not really intended to be scary and it also isn't scary, especially by today's standards. There are many scenes with dancing ghosts and it felt a bit embarrassing to me, maybe when the film was at its weakest. In addition, I must say the story was very forgettable too. In my opinion, one film would have been (more than) enough already and this second movie adds extremely little. This is especially disappointing as I was curious about the young Heinz Baumann, but he is in line with all the other mediocrity we are served here. Watch something else instead and it's embarrassing to see how highly some people rate this film (4 stars is already generous) and that the franchise still was not over at this point.

Perhaps one needed to have grown up with this type of film and, yes, "Spukschloss im Spessart" (Simplified English title: "The Haunted Castle") will appear very dated to a contemporary audience, but for many Germans the mere mention of the "Spessart"-movies will trigger soothing childhood-memories.During the 1950s, 60s and 70s German cinema has produced countless "family-friendly" comedies and musical, which did more than just a little borrowing from contemporary American films. Like the US-versions, these films were squeaky-clean, made the viewers forget the still fresh horrors of the second World War for an hour and a half, and where the "Ozzie and Harriet"-cinema of the US had their Bob Hopes, Doris Days and Rock Hudsons, the German variations had their Liselotte Pulvers and Heinz Baumanns.The story is as simple as it is clean-cut: A group of ghosts that have been walled up in the cellar of the Spessart-Inn during the middle-ages retain their freedom, when the Inn is replaced by the Autobahn. However, they can only find peace if they do one good deed. So they try to help out the beautiful but broke Countess Charlotte (Pulver), whose castle is in danger of being turned into a modern hotel. Needless to say, that the bumbling ghosts at first fail and have to deal with corrupt politicians (Hubert von Meyerinck) and a crazed prince from the middle-east (Hans Clarin). Needless to say: It all ends good & well (and the Americans are 'borrowing' the spirits in order to beat the Russians at the space-race).And since the entire film interludes with numerous song- & dance-numbers, the producers have seen it fit to call "Spukschloss im Spessart" a "spookical" (German: "Grusical"), making it one of the commercially successful German films of this season. The only major difference to the general US-American variation might be, that the German comedies were a tidbit more critical, for example parodying then-capital-city of Bonn, politics and German bureaucracy.Of course, the special-effects are dated (to put it mildly; today most digital student-projects would have more convincing effect), but one cannot deny that the individual songs – despite being kitschy, occasionally put a hook to the ear. Baumann as the countess' love-interest is a little bland, Pulver cute as ever (having the same tom-boyish air of a young Doris Day and Hans Clarin steals every scene he's in with his over-the-top, manic performance.I'm not going to write about all the goodness of the film – from me it gets a solid 7.5 and I never give 10 – but rather focus on what I view as little weaknesses.

This sequel to Wirtshaus im Spessart is a slightly weaker effort that, at times, feels like a saccharine Disney production from that time period, particularly with regard to the hammy performances by the ghosts.However, the film is redeemed by the ever-delightful Liselotte Pulver's talent for light comedy.Set two hundred years after the previous film, the wirsthaus has been demolished to make way for a petrol station, reflecting the speed of reconstruction and modernisation in 1950s West Germany. This unleashes the ghosts of the highwaymen from the first film who seek out the descendant of Liselotte's previous character in an effort to redeem themselves.Whilst the humour is, on the surface, largely slapstick, there is much commentary and satire on the state of German politics as well.The film is fast-paced and suitably light-hearted with some delightful musical numbers. Indeed, even the opening credits are sung.The special effects though, are distractingly bad and, like its predecessor, the lack of adventure in terms of scale, settings and cinematography really reflect the lack of confidence in German cinema at this time compared with during the Weimar Republic. Clearly the nation was reinventing itself after the horrors of the war and the self-deprecating humour and satire aimed at politicans and bureaucrats reflect the desperately-needed change in attitude towards leaders after the disaster of the Third Reich.However, for all of its lack of artistic spirit, this film reflects the reinvention of Germany as a modern democracy, able to laugh at itself, point honestly to its shortcomings and leave well and truly behind its former insularity and nationalistic temperament. Thus, it is a reflection of a much more positive and mature people who are just starting to find a new place for themselves as co-leaders in a modernising Europe.