Weekend im Paradies

German television movie based on the play by Marc Camoletti.

Oskar Schnabel is a wholesaler of fruits from the Arabian region. One day his oriental trading partner passes on a twelve-piece of harem ladies to him.

This first film adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play about class distinctions was made in 1955 in the Vienna Rosenhügel studios, but it was only premiered five years later. Curt Bois plays the rich capitalist Puntila who only becomes somewhat agreeable when he is drunk (which he is most of the time in this film). In his inebriated state, Puntila not only gets amorously involved with three different ladies but also suggests that his daughter Eva marries his chauffeur Matti. The chauffeur, however, doesn’t really agree…

Mr. Josef is an old-school servant who works in the house of the banker Türkheim. One day, he falls in love with a stray little dog and secretly takes the trusting animal into his home. But then bitter times begin for the old servant: Türkheim's domineering sister Auguste will not tolerate the dog in the house under any circumstances.

Friedrich is the clumsy husband from whom his better half vainly expects a wild temper. He wants to make his wife, who is flirting with divorce and the house friend, jealous by feigning an affair. He laboriously organizes an amateurish "in flagrante delicto" with the harmless neighbor, pours alcohol into himself, and stumbles into his first drunken stupor.