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A pioneering film about a young man, Klaus, who is gay. At the start of the film it says "Based on a famous court case; all the names are fictitious".
Klaus lives in Berlin with his parents; his stuffy banker father is worried that he associates with friends whom the father thinks undesirable, and he and his mother try various means to cure him. For the year of production of the film, the theme is very advanced, although of course the attitudes look prehistoric today. The dialogue is rather mawkish and unconvincing, reflecting the underground character of the film.
When Klaus visits a club with his friend, his father finds out and goes there too with a more worldly wise friend, Max, to see what it is all about. The travesty star Marcel Andrée is performing, as Lolita. Father's eyesight must be bad, in a dialogue that seems designed to show us how confusing genders really are.
Father: How am I to know if that's a man?
Max: It's a man.
Father: He is? He imitates them well.
Max: Yes, some call it that.
Father: She sings like a woman.
Max: No no
Father: What's that?
Max: He sings ...
The performer disappears back stage and reappears a moment later in male evening dress (although still with facial make-up), to the father's astonishment. The transgender issue hasn't been exposed to us so far, except on stage, but suddenly we see that one of the customers is wearing a cocktail dress ...
Father: And there, at the table next to us ... and they also ... ?
Max: All men.
Father: No!
Max: You want to make a little bet?
Father: Bet?
Max: I'll show you. Hi, fellow!
Crossdresser: What? Yes?
Father: Well what did you think of that! She answered.
Max: He ...
There are two other possibly crossdressed customers in the same shot, but there are no other transgender references in the film.
If the laboured explanations seem rather heavy-handed, we must not forget the public ignorance of the issues in 1957.
The film is also known as:
Bewildered Youth
Das Dritte Geschlecht and
The Third Sex.
HF August 2007
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