episode 240
In the summer months, my reading tour took me to some cities I had never visited before. For example, I was in the pop and rock metropolis of Pforzheim for the first time. Everything that is said about Pforzheim is true. The pop group Fools Garden hails here, as does the boxer René Weller. Pforzheim takes place somewhere between these two poles. The surrounding area is very beautiful and I met only friendly people.
I don’t know much about boxing, but at least René Weller played in a film called “Macho Man” in 1985, after which the history of German auteur films had to be rewritten. Unfortunately, the film does not take place in Pforzheim, but in Nuremberg (according to the “Nürnberger Zeitung” it is the only action film shot in Nuremberg), but as the great philosopher Mick Jagger already knew: You can’t always get everything you want.
Weller plays the boxer Dany Wagner in the film, who takes on three heroin dealers who have kidnapped “the attractive Sandra” (credit text). Dany/René can rely on his friend, the karate professional Andreas, for his beating campaigns. When he foolishly falls in love with “the attractive Sandra”, the friends fight: boxing versus karate. A tough plot wrested from everyday martial arts.
The film features some of the most dystopian hairstyles ever captured on celluloid. Basically, the work only makes sense as a double feature with the similar Peter Maffay vehicle “Der Joker”, shot by Peter Patzak in Hamburg, in which the rock legend plays a wheelchair-bound policeman (role name: Jan Bogdan), who dealing with Michael York, Elliott Gould and Armin Mueller-Stahl, among others. The film’s soundtrack is on Tony Carey’s Bedtime Story album, which I hope is rare. Both films tell like nothing good about what Germany was really like in the 80s. When you combine the two movie titles, it’s almost like a Traveling Wilburys song title: The Joker & The Macho Man.
If you still need more information about Germany in the 1980s after watching the two films, only Michael Verhoeven’s 1983 Spider-Murphy Gang film will help. Unfortunately, the soundtrack to “Macho Man”, which consists of instrumental synth rock, does not appear to be available on record.
According to Wikipedia, there is exactly the lemon tree in Pforzheim that inspired the musicians of Fools Garden to their world hit. Well, at least he did exist. Maybe I’ll finance my retirement by organizing “rock tours” through German medium-sized towns: “Book your trip to the places where German rock history was active now!” I would rattle through the country with a funky designed bus and present the various places of pilgrimage to eager fans : “And this is really the lemon tree?” – “No, unfortunately only a replica. The original was felled back in 1999.”
On the day I am writing these lines, the Spider Murphy Gang is playing an open-air concert in front of the Bavarian State Chancellery, moderated by Markus Söder, who in his speech is expressly aimed at those “who believe in cult” and “that Whole newfangled ones don’t like it that much. The Spider Murphy Gang didn’t deserve this, but as we all know, times are tough in show business. I don’t know what René Weller and Fools Garden are doing right now. I expressly wish both of them that they will never have to be moderated by Winfried Kretschmann.
Apart from that, the only thing left to say is that someone should definitely shoot a second action film in Nuremberg. And a first in Pforzheim. I just saw that the wonderful musician and author Almut Klotz (Lassie Singers), who died far too young, also came from Pforzheim. A memorial is really due here. But maybe that shouldn’t necessarily be in Pforzheim.