Hvad vil De ha'? (1956) User Reviews

That's a lot of water... and you only see the top of it, anyway

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 6/10 · 31 March 2010]

I suppose I "get" the negative votes. This isn't what people like today. And yes, most of it is silly and goofy. There are things that fit in nowhere and are completely random. It is by no means a masterpiece, and it isn't a flick that makes a lasting impression. The basic idea is that you see the two writers and the director ask members of very different groups(age, job, gender) what they want in a movie, and then we see it(am I the only one who gets a kick out of how meta this is?), or a representation of it... "dolls" becomes French chicks doing the can-can(presumably because they can-can-can). Yes, that means that some of what we see was put into this purely because it was popular at the time(with that said, nearly none of that is dated or out of style; they include jazz, calypso and songs that were *everywhere* at the time, catchy tunes that will take years to excise from your brain... I'm not kidding, one of them, I literally thought "oh, I remember this being stuck in my head", and it has been ages since I watched this). It is more than likely that this originated as the film-makers trying desperately to think of what to put in the thing. This is(...well, it was when it was made, now it really shows because tastes have changed) as audience-pleasing as the fictional picture they're putting together. There are gags and jokes that fall flat, but almost without exception, the scenes are immensely short, so you barely have time to tire of anything. You have to pay close attention to get every punchline, and it isn't always worth it. Everything flies by fast, and next to nothing in this overstays its welcome. Of course that doesn't help any if you aren't laughing. It's not as painful as The Green Elevator. The humor can be funny, even sharp and observant(as well as naughty, though children won't get it), farcical, parody and over the top(that goes for the performances, too). It's all swiftly delivered. This has 32(!) known actors from the period, in big and small parts(usually, they appear once in this). It's enjoyable to recognize them, and this is surely entirely harmless. Dirch and Petersen have strong moments, if the best of their careers is largely elsewhere(if you view just a few minutes of this, try to make it the sequence of them "constructing" a set near the end). This also has worth as a time capsule; you can see stuff from back then, how things were, how people talked, behaved... for crying out loud, there's footage of Storm P. in this! There is brief nudity in this. I recommend it to anyone who likes our comedies of the time, and those who are nostalgic about the period. 6/10