Forgotten 1970s German Films: Wild, Bloody, and Full of Genre Bizarre!

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1970s German films are inextricably connected to the New German Cinema movement, which saw a group of innovative directors, including Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Margarethe von Trotta, and Volker Schlöndorff, awakening postwar Germany from its slumber. Their motto was “Papa’s Kino ist tot” (“Papa’s cinema is dead”), signifying their desire to break away from the past and explore groundbreaking new ideas in filmmaking.

In the midst of the art-focused cinematic movement during the ’70s in Germany, there was a parallel emergence of a rougher, more commercially oriented style. This style drew influence from genres like sexploitation, spaghetti Westerns, biker movies, and grindhouse horror, blending these with the societal themes of political unrest and sexual freedom that were prevalent at the time. The 2025 Berlinale is celebrating this often-overlooked genre of German cinema in its retrospective, showcasing 15 films – cult favorites and obscure titles from both East and West Germany – demonstrating that German film could also be bold, eccentric, and violent.

At the given time, there was a significant overlap between the auteur cinema and traditional genre films, according to Rainer Rother, who oversees the Berlinale’s Retrospective program and heads the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin, Germany’s museum of film and television. These influential filmmakers, such as Alexander Kluge, Hans W. Geißendörfer, and Fassbinder, often experimented with various genres, sometimes intentionally creating films that could be categorized as horror, science fiction, or exploitation movies.

Upon receiving Kurt Raab’s script for “Tenderness of the Wolves,” a serial killer thriller based on the chilling true story of Fritz Harrmann, also known as the Butcher of Hanover, who was infamous for his double life as a child molester and vampire, Fassbinder recommended that his protege, Ulli Lommel, direct it as a blend of Fritz Lang’s “M” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” with an emphasis on gory scenes. Lommel followed Fassbinder’s advice. The final product, featuring Raab in the leading role and drawing inspiration from both Peter Lorre and Max Schreck, serves as a fascinating link between Weimar-era cinema and Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” and is a must-watch for enthusiasts of offbeat horror films.

Prior to his critically acclaimed works like “The Glass Cell” (1977), nominated for an Oscar, or the adaptation of “The Magic Mountain” (1981), Geißendörfer delved into the gruesome with the 1970’s movie “Jonathan”. This was a campy but politically charged vampire film that centered around a count and his cult-like followers who were prone to murder. The film, visually stunning even today thanks to the long artistic shots by Robby Müller, a renowned Dutch cinematographer who later worked on “Paris, Texas” (1984) directed by Wim Wenders and “Breaking the Waves” (1996) by Lars von Trier, tells the story of a group of students planning a rebellion against the bloodthirsty count. This count was a monstrous figure who consumed babies and kept villagers in his cellar for depraved feasts. Keep an eye on QAnon.

As a gamer, I’d say: “This horror flick is chilling, but what really sets it apart is its depiction of a populist, eerily reminiscent of Nazi-like movements.” To me, it mirrors the political climate of the era, specifically the Red Army Faction (RAF), a left-wing extremist group who saw themselves as battling postwar German capitalism and the old Nazis still pulling the strings of power.

1972’s film “Bloody Friday,” by Rolf Olsen, continues its lasting popularity as a cult classic in Germany among the Retrospective films. The political themes are revisited but presented through the lens of the exploitation genre. This heist-gone-awry movie is influenced by a true event: a robbery and hostage-taking that occurred in Munich. An ex-convict, his Italian associate, and a deserter from the army collaborate to orchestrate a grand bank robbery, acquiring firepower from a U.S. military base in the process. The outcome will be tragic. Olsen delves deep into the giallo genre — anticipate graphic scenes of disembowelment, bodies peppered with bullets, and a particularly unsettling scene involving sexual assault. However, he also includes a nearly documentary-style discussion on capital punishment and a relatively empathetic portrayal of the RAF’s “by any means necessary” stance on revolution.

1970’s Euro-Western movie “Deadlock” by Roland Klick, which is featured in this year’s Retrospective, was designed as a counterpoint to the “anti-audience” films of New German Cinema. The storyline is suitably gritty, featuring three men in the desert, a bag of cash, and numerous firearms. However, with its psychedelic visuals and avant-garde electronic music by Can, the band known for pioneering krautrock, the movie unfolds like a hallucination induced by LSD. Director of “El Topo”, Alexandro Jodorowsky, was an admirer, describing “Deadlock” as a “fantastic, bizarre, luminous film.

On the other side of the Berlin Wall, life had a more optimistic tone due to the East German censors who primarily censored violence and explicit content from television. However, even amidst this regulation, Günter Reisch’s 1976 state-approved farce, “Carnations in Aspic,” found a way to subtly inject satire into its narrative. In the film, an accomplished commercial artist with a lisp, portrayed by Armin Mueller-Stahl, feels too self-conscious to articulate clearly. His superiors, under the impression that he must be exceptionally talented, elevate him within the hierarchy. Meanwhile, in East German musicals like “Don’t Cheat, Darling!” (1973) and “Hat Off When You Kiss” (1971), which are part of this year’s Retrospective, there’s a subtle undercurrent of female empowerment alongside captivating dance numbers.

In the 1980s, Germany experienced a short-lived fascination with genre movies. This era saw an upsurge in larger-budget period, science fiction, and fantasy films like Das Boot, The Name of the Rose, and The Neverending Story. Meanwhile, crime stories migrated to television, where long-running shows such as Tatort and Polizeiruf 110 provided a steady diet of murder and chaos to viewers. As Rother puts it, “Television became the preferred platform for crime.” With each passing day, you can find a German cop drama, thriller, or heist film on TV. The financing landscape also shifted, making it difficult for genre films to secure funding.

Unlike the significant impact of New German Cinema and films by directors like Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders, the influence of German genre flicks from the 70’s has been more restrained. However, Rother believes there is a connection between these gritty pulp movies from the 70’s and the works of modern filmmakers such as Christian Petzold (Yella, Phoenix), Thomas Aslan (Dealer, Scorched Earth), or Christoph Hochhäusler (Till the End of the Night, The City Below). These contemporary German directors are reimagining traditional B-movie genres into more thoughtful, intellectual forms. Rother also perceives traces of Klaus Lemke’s outsider cinema, as seen in his 1972 Hamburg biker-gang classic Rocker, in the films of prolific German auteur Dominik Graf (Fabian: Going to the Dogs).

According to Rother, these were filmmakers operating outside the mainstream, crafting unconventional, bold movies, frequently produced on a shoestring budget but with an astonishing level of creative liberty. It’s this approach – their outsider viewpoint, as much as the films themselves – that captivates directors like Graf.

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2025-02-14 10:25