Review of Das Haus in Montevideo

"Das Haus in Montevideo" is a West German German-language movie from 1951, so it has its 65th anniversary this year. This is one of the later career efforts by German filmmaker Curt Goetz, who was in his 60s already when he made this one. And with "made", I am talking about him being a co-director, co-writer and lead actor here. And he also plays the central character here. The plot here on IMDb actually sounds pretty interesting for this 105-minute movie. A clean tidy family who lives in accordance with morals has a daughter who earns a fortune, but she only gets the money if there is a big event of immorality taking place. So can you sell your approach to life for a huge sum? It sounds actually pretty deep and significant, also from a drama perspective, but it really isn't. It is pretty much all about the hullabaloo and shenanigans, especially these of the father, Goetz' character. His performance is also pretty solid I guess, but I found none of the other performances memorable whatsoever. And as decent as the plot sounds (and as funny), it is still a film that really drags a lot on many occasions I have to say. Maybe it would have been best to keep it relatively short in the tradition of old German movie legends like Ernst Lubitsch and Karl Valentin. At 35-40 minutes, it may have been a really funny watch. But at not much under 2 hours, it certainly isn't. There is an okay moment here and there, but there are also weak moments with comedic intent that isn't working and has not aged well at all. And I don't think that this is just by today's standards. As a whole, the film lacks focus, essentiality and significance. This is also the main reason why I do not recommend this German-language black-and-white film. Thumbs down from me. If you still went/want to watch it, let me tell you that there is a Heinz Rühmann version of the film from more than a decade later and that one may be better. I haven't seen it (yet), but Rühmann usually always delivers. Then again, it's not really difficult or a challenge to be better than this one we have here.