Herzquietschen (1981)

Herzquietschen: Directed by Allan Arkush. With Andy Kaufman, Bernadette Peters, Randy Quaid, Kenneth McMillan. Two household robots run away and try to start a family.

“If you have witnessed Andy Kaufmanu0026#39;s slant on comedy, you may understand why I avoided this movie of his for years. Actually, for most of that time, I couldnu0026#39;t see it even if I wanted to – video stores in my area didnu0026#39;t stock it, and it never appeared on TV. I had to rent it online when recently I finally got the courage to give it a try.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMy heart sank during the first few seconds of the movie. The comedy in this opening is both very familiar and unfunny, and the movie manages to sink further and further as it goes on. Thereu0026#39;s barely a story here, with the bulk of the movie consisting of the robots wandering around… and around… and around until you want to scream. It doesnu0026#39;t help that the robot characters are a turn-off. They donu0026#39;t have much of a personality (they seem very stupid – why should we care about stupid characters?), and their voices are very annoying to the ear.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe makeup is good, Iu0026#39;ll admit. But it seems odd that they spent time for the makeup when not bothering to present the rest of this world as a futuristic world (the vehicles of this world, for one thing, are present-day gas-powered vehicles.) Itu0026#39;s even more odd to consider that no one involved with this movie realized along the way that this project was a train wreck.”