IMMER ARGER MIT DEM BETT (1961)
aka Nightmare
Article 3989 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-24-2012
Directed by Rudolf Schundler
Featuring Senta Berger, Gunter Pfitzmann, Trude Herr
Country: West Germany
What it is: Comedy of mistaken identities

A detective has a nightmare that his wife has been unfaithful, and when she is mistaken for a call girl, he finds his nightmare coming true.

This movie first entered my list as NIGHTMARE some time ago, but that’s not one of the alternate names on the movie in IMDB. The only clue I had was that it featured Senta Berger, and she made several movies that year, and so it remained a mystery to me. When it finally ended up on the “ones that got away” list, one of the members of CHFB was able to zero in on its original title, and also pointed me in the direction of acquiring a copy. So here I am, finally reviewing it, but, truth to tell, I’m not sure it was really worth the effort. I was only able to find a copy in German without subtitles, but even with that problem, it appeared to me that the fantastic content (the nightmare coming true) is very light; the nightmare is a short sequence at the beginning of the movie, and it hardly comes true in any literal sense. As for the movie itself, it seems well directed and makes some interesting use of music, but the comedy looks rather tepid, and I suspect the whole thing would prove to be rather forgettable. Outside of Berger, the only other performer I recognize is Leon Askin, who turns out to be the primary villain of the story.