Lisa (Heike Makatsch) in a scene from “I’ve never been to New York” (undated). The musical will be broadcast on July 11, 2022 in the first. Photo: Ufa Fiction
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HAMBURG: A spectacle from the big musical stages has finally arrived in the living room: for ten years, the musical “I’ve never been to New York” with songs by Udo Jürgens in Hamburg and on stations in Germany, Switzerland and Japan has inspired several million visitors. A film version was made in 2019 – colorful, wonderfully exaggerated, wonderfully gripping and with a top cast. On Monday at 8:15 p.m she runs in the first.
As the main actors, Heike Makatsch, Katharina Thalbach, Moritz Bleibtreu, Uwe Ochsenknecht and Pasquale Aleardi sing, dance and play their way into the hearts of musical fans. You should be a musical enthusiast or at least a Udo Jürgens fan if you want to enjoy the film by Philipp Stölzl (“Schachnovelle”). About 20 songs by the singer, who died in 2014, are breathed, smashed and warbled.
The timeless Jürgens classics are embedded in a story about Maria “Sternchen” Wartberg, who lost her memory after a fall in her small kitchen – while the song “I’ve never been to New York” by Udo Jürgens was playing on the radio. In the hospital, the 66-year-old can’t remember anything. Only New York remained as a faint memory. Consequently, she takes to her heels and takes the next cruise ship to New York.
Her daughter, the moderately successful but very self-confident TV presenter Lisa Wartberg (Makatsch) and her make-up artist Fred (Michael Ostrowski) want to get the old lady off board – the cruise ship is already leaving for America. Also present are the widower Axel (Bleibtreu) and his son Florian (Marlon Schramm), who want to scatter their mother’s ashes over New York. In addition, one-dancer Otto (Ochsenknecht) is flirting with the wealthy ladies on board. Until he recognizes in Maria his “little star” from his youth.
Stölzl’s musical film has everything an entertaining film should offer. You can shed a tear here and there, only to start giggling again immediately afterwards. The dances are crisply choreographed and the scenery is reminiscent of the glorious times of the 1920s. And when, in the film’s most romantic moment, the dolphins jump out of the sea before the sunset, there’s something so over the top kitschy about it that it’s good again.
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