Trailer for Deep End (1970). Music: Mother Sky.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Can over the past week, and thinking—not for the first time—about their erratic soundtrack career. Their soundtrack music is very familiar from their second album, Soundtracks, and the recent Lost Tapes collection which unearthed a few pieces that were previously only available in films or TV episodes. Much less familiar is the films and TV episodes themselves so here’s a look at some of the available material. Deep End and Alice in the Cities are both acclaimed (and highly recommended) feature films available on DVD. Everything else in this collection has been less visible outside Germany.
Update: Added Das Millionenspiel.
Das Millionenspiel (1970). Music: Millionenspiel.
A film for German television based on a science-fiction story (The Prize of Peril, 1958) by Robert Sheckley about a reality-TV manhunt game. IMDB has Irmin Schmidt listed as the uncredited composer but the theme was a Can production.
Trailer for Mädchen mit Gewalt (1970). Music: Soul Desert and Desert.
Trailer for Deadlock (1970). Music: Deadlock and Tango Whiskeyman.
Another of the strange Westerns (or Western-like films) that flourished in the early 70s.
Das Messer, part one (1971). Music: Spoon and Messer, Scissors, Fork and Light.
Part one of a three-part TV serial all of which is on YouTube.
Trailer for Ein Großer Graublauer Vogel (1971). Music: She Brings The Rain and Graublau.
Trailer for School Girl Bride aka Cream—Schwabing-Report (1971). Music: Don’t Turn The Light On, Leave Me Alone.
An alleged sex comedy, this looks terrible whatever language it’s in.
Tote Taube in der Beethovenstraße/Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (1973). Music: Vitamin C and Dead Pigeon Suite.
A German TV episode directed by Sam Fuller and soundtracked by Can! The whole thing is on YouTube. Since a Wim Wenders film follows this it’s worth mentioned that Fuller played a gangster for Wenders a couple of years later in The American Friend.
Trailer for Alice in the Cities (1974). Music: Alice.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Can’s Lost Tapes
[As a sidenote, Alice in the Cities also features the wonderful German singer Sibylle Baier, who around this time was recording the songs that would later appear on the album Colour Green.]
Speaking of Wim Wenders, the WW Foundation announced on Facebook that his complete approved 5 hour cut of UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD will be released this year by Criterion Collection.
Nice soundtrack also with a CAN tune the name of which I’ll be danged if I can remember right this minute.
DEAD PIGEON ON BEETHOVEN STREET is forthcoming, in its rare director’s cut, on Blu-ray and DVD from Olive Films this spring.
I’m a devotee of the REPORT films and would love to see CREAM-SCHWABING REPORT. Thanks for bringing the SCHOOL GIRL BRIDE trailer to my attention!
Adam: Yes, there’s other music in there. The Can piece was a late addition suggested by editor Peter Przygodda who also filmed the Can Free Concert in 1972. (Available on the Can DVD.) Wenders himself made a short film of Amon Düül II in 1969.
Tim: As it happens someone also alerted me to the Fuller disc on Twitter. As for Cream, I have a low tolerance for those kinds of films but it’s good to get an idea of what it’s like. Deep End aside, all the films on the Soundtracks album were mysteries for many years. Incidentally, I used to read your columns in the print version of Video Watchdog. Thanks for commenting!