I viewed a print of 'Ez a Villa Eladó' that was badly dubbed into German by actors whose voices didn't match the characters on screen, so here goes. I can't tell how nearly the German version conforms to the original script and dialogue. The reels were numbered in sequence, but there seems to be a reel missing because there's a gap in the story and the running time is too short. I make plenty of errors in my IMDb postings, often due to poor memory of unmemorable films ... but just this once, blame my errors on whoever translated the dialogue for this German-language print.
SPOILERS GALORE. George (Ernö Verebes) is a handsome young man who closes up his villa to go away on holiday. Due to the confusion of George's bumbling manservant Janos, the estate agents list George's villa for sale ... to be let furnished, as George's possessions are still on the premises. Several potential buyers show up, including young ladies Annie and Terry and a guy named Tivadar. Also among those present are a couple of crooks whose real plan is to burgle the joint.
George comes home unexpectedly, but can't find his latchkey. Does he ring the bell so Janos can let him in? No; he climbs in through the window. The two crooks witness this, and naturally they assume he's a burglar. Rather less plausibly, they decide to go shares with him, recruiting George to burgle his own residence. (This reminded me of a similar plot twist in 'The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss', a much better film than this one.)
Well, the whole movie is knee-deep in goulash. I had difficulty following the plot, which has lots of talk and not much action. One of the potential buyers of the villa (played by Laszlo Keleti) apparently has some sort of speech impediment, because he keeps pulling faces every time he speaks ... but it can't be a spastic problem, because he's normal enough when he isn't talking. As I screened a dubbed print, I can't be sure if the speech impediment was in the original Hungarian film, or if it was added by the German distributor to make the movie funnier. Either way, it doesn't work. I seldom find speech impediments funny.
There's some singing (left undubbed, so I heard this in the original Magyar instead of German), and the plot ends with a double wedding: George marries blonde Terry, and Tivadar wives it with brunette Annie. I stopped caring after the third reel, and I speed-cranked most of this. The camera angles are bad, the photography's dark, and the shot-matching is execrable. However, as I viewed a print that deviated significantly from the original film, I shan't rate this mess.
SPOILERS GALORE. George (Ernö Verebes) is a handsome young man who closes up his villa to go away on holiday. Due to the confusion of George's bumbling manservant Janos, the estate agents list George's villa for sale ... to be let furnished, as George's possessions are still on the premises. Several potential buyers show up, including young ladies Annie and Terry and a guy named Tivadar. Also among those present are a couple of crooks whose real plan is to burgle the joint.
George comes home unexpectedly, but can't find his latchkey. Does he ring the bell so Janos can let him in? No; he climbs in through the window. The two crooks witness this, and naturally they assume he's a burglar. Rather less plausibly, they decide to go shares with him, recruiting George to burgle his own residence. (This reminded me of a similar plot twist in 'The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss', a much better film than this one.)
Well, the whole movie is knee-deep in goulash. I had difficulty following the plot, which has lots of talk and not much action. One of the potential buyers of the villa (played by Laszlo Keleti) apparently has some sort of speech impediment, because he keeps pulling faces every time he speaks ... but it can't be a spastic problem, because he's normal enough when he isn't talking. As I screened a dubbed print, I can't be sure if the speech impediment was in the original Hungarian film, or if it was added by the German distributor to make the movie funnier. Either way, it doesn't work. I seldom find speech impediments funny.
There's some singing (left undubbed, so I heard this in the original Magyar instead of German), and the plot ends with a double wedding: George marries blonde Terry, and Tivadar wives it with brunette Annie. I stopped caring after the third reel, and I speed-cranked most of this. The camera angles are bad, the photography's dark, and the shot-matching is execrable. However, as I viewed a print that deviated significantly from the original film, I shan't rate this mess.
