Torn Curtain on steroids

Rating: 7/10 (22 February 2006)

I just saw this movie for the first time in the original English version, and it's silly, but VERY entertaining fun.
Indeed, from "There's Sauerkraut in my Lederhosen" to the moving train station to Dèja Vu ("Haven't we met before?") to Rivers placing his head into a gas oven (an overt parody of the murder scene in "Torn Curtain", I think) to the Blue Lagoon spoof, this has to be counted as a classic.
It may not reach the heights of some French film comedies (like "Oscar" or "The Great Blonde"), but it's a very well done parody in its own right.
Some personal remarks: My appreciation for Val Kilmer has grown immensely after watching this film; this fellow is a gifted dancer and an achieved singer. --- Jeremy Kemp playing Major Streck has such a sweet German accent I couldn't believe he's an Englishman. --- Has anyone noticed that the heroine lodges in hotel room # 409 - hardly a surprise after the Beach Boys-parody intro? --- I may be wrong, but one of the East German Olympic team's women in the honorary ceremony at the beginning of the film looks suspiciously like Sylvester Stallone --- I was pleasantly surprised by the liberal use of Yiddish in the English original. That was phased out in the German dubbing; apparently this was still a no-no twenty years ago. Thank God this has changed in the meantime. Still, it made me angry and sad that the crazy Nazi barbarians succeeded in eradicating this rich culture from our midst.
The latter notwithstanding, this film gave me a very good time, indeed.