Fools in the Mountains

Fools in the Mountains, more euphoniously called Fjols til Fjells in Norwegian, is a 1957 farce directed by Edith Carlmar.  The movie is unknown outside of Norway, but much beloved in that country -- apparently, the picture is shown on Norwegian TV each Christmas as a family favorite.  It's a modest little farce, good-spirited and fast-paced.  Much of the humor relies upon complicated patterns of alliteration in the Norwegian dialogue and there is evidently a lot of risque, verbal humor that doesn't translate at all in the subtitles.  Clearly, there is a lot of witty word-play invisible to non-Norwegian-speaking audiences and, probably, for this reason, no one has seen the movie in the United States -- it was recently broadcast as part of the TCM series Women Make Films, apparently the American premiere of the film.

The film is set in a resort hotel in the Norwegian mountains.  The place, catering to upscale skiing enthusiasts, is run by a pompous, high-strung manager named Poppe.  (This is the Basil Fawlty role, played to grotesque perfection by the Norwegian comedian, Leif Juster.)  Poppe is some kind of weird chimera, half Ichabod Crane and half Max von Sydow -- he seems prematurely old with a gaunt scarecrow-like appearance, very tall and skinny with a long saturnine nose.  Poppe's hotel called Hrumhei (pronounced with throat-clearing elan) is part of a chain of resorts owned by the Oslo tycoon, Mr. Granberg.  Concerned at the profitability of the Hrumhei resort, Granberg dispatches his very cute 21 year-old daughter to the property where she poses as a bell-hop, Rudy.  The resort is astir with news that a Norwegian matinee idol, Teddy Winter, intends to spend several nights in the place.  As it happens, an hour before Winter checks-in, an orinthologist (an owl fancier) who looks exactly like Teddy Winter appears and is treated with ostentatious courtesy and acclaim by Poppe and his staff (and other guests).  The alleged Winter is put in the best suite in the house, the bridal suite.  An hour later, the real Winter appears and is checked-into another adjacent room.  The real Winter is planning a romantic tryst with Eva Sommer, another movie star.  One of Winter's pasts conquests, a model named Mona is also staying in the ski resort and she tries to seduce Winter (in the form of both men).  The plot is enlivened by a saucy maid, Lalla, and a quack doctor named Dr. Gray, who apparently prescribes alcohol for all ailments.  Poppe keeps seeing the two Winters although always separately, assists one of them only to be castigated as presumptuous by the other.  The confusion between the movie star and the owl fancier involves all sorts of erotic byplay based on mistaken identity.  The poor owl fancier gets roundly slapped by both Eva Sommer and Mona for his flirtations -- of course, these amorous infractions were committed by the movie star.  Poppe becomes hysterical and seems to have a nervous breakdown after much prancing about and spastic mugging, in the manner of an elongated Jerry Lewis.  There's even some comic scenes outside involving Poppe's hapless attempt at downhill skiing -- this is pure physical comedy, not very effective, but interesting for its glimpses at the vestigial state of  1957 Norwegian ski-resorts (for instance, there is no ski-lift and people are ferried up to a ridge by snowmobile).  The film ends on a somewhat incongruous and disturbing note:  the beautiful Rudy (she looks like Debbie Reynolds) falls in love with the much older and very strange Poppe.  They embrace.  Rudy has figured out the mistaken identities involving Winters the actor and the bird-fancier.  Mr. Granberg has come to the hotel and everything is sorted out:  the owl-lover ends up with Mona and Teddy Winters plans to marry Eva Sommer.  

This sort of elaborately contrived plot was old in the time of Plautus.  It's clever but rather tedious and, without the clever word-play adorning the script, most audiences will find nothing particularly new or exciting in this material.  The merry roundelay of mistaken identities involves many chaotic bedroom scenes with the characters moving rapidly from room to room -- the bird-fancier expelled from Mona's room after an erotic misunderstanding ends up sleeping in the bathtub and, of course, the water gets turned on so that he is soaked.  Poppe strips down in front of the horrified Rudy who flees to the maid Lalla's room.  (Rudy is obviously female and it takes a willing suspension of disbelief to accept the fact that all the characters think that she is a perky young man.)  This kind of smirking and salacious sex comedy is familiar to English-speaking audiences through Woody Allen's Don't Drink the Water and the English comedy No Sex Please, We're British -- both shows popular with community theaters in the hinterland.  These farces, in turn, were influenced by Georges Feydeau's A Flea in her Ear and L'Hotel du Libre Exchange, both of which feature lovers trying to connect in shady hotels.  (The latter farce was popular in a 1956 British version starring Alec Guinness called Hotel Paradiso).  Of course, the best example of this genre is John Cleese's sublime Fawlty Towers.  Cleese, who is also inordinately tall, and with peculiar features, plays Basil Fawlty in a manner that is very similar to some Leif Juster's antics in the Norwegian film.  The scenes with the beanpole Poppe flanked by the tiny, dimpled Rudy as his lieutenant are sweet enough to almost, but not completely, justify the climactic clinch between the two mismatched characters.