The Complexity of Simple Songs Steals the Show in ‘Harmonists’

Given its melodious title, it’s not a shock that music is central to “The Harmonists,” but what will be pleasantly surprising for most audiences is how charming and infectious the sounds it features turn out to be.

Set in Germany in the years between 1927 and 1934, “The Harmonists” is based on the career of the Comedian Harmonists, little known in this country but considered one of the great vocal ensembles of modern times. It’s the seamless, syncopated vocalizing of the original Harmonists (remastered from vintage discs) that’s heard on the soundtrack, and their sound turns out to be the film’s most engaging character.

Inspired by an American group called the Revellers, the Harmonists specialized in intricate, insouciant five-part harmonies with piano accompaniment. Their lyrics couldn’t be more insubstantial (“Veronica, spring has sprung, the girls are singing tra-la-la” ran one), but the way their voices blended was completely intoxicating and made the group an enormous success throughout Europe.

The modern interest in the Harmonists was sparked by a massive, eight-hour 1988 documentary by Eberhard Fechner called “Six Lives.” Completely fascinating but never released in this country, it told one of those stranger-than-fiction stories that dramatic filmmakers can never resist retelling.

Directed by Joseph Vilsmaier (“Stalingrad”) from a script by Klaus Richter, “The Harmonists” is not going to win any awards for originality. Predictably conventional and mainstream, it cheerfully serves up numerous stock situations, from love at first sight to neighbors banging so hard on a musician’s walls that pictures fall off their hooks.

Yet such is the power of the Harmonists’ music that even well-scrubbed stereotypes like prostitutes as glamorous as movie stars come off as good-natured and easy to take. And the story of the group’s rise and fall is always involving, even when told in a way calculated not to mar a highly polished surface.

“The Harmonists” opens in 1928, with the group’s triumphant Berlin debut. Germany may be in despair but, as a theatrical impresario tells the men, “the darker the times, the brighter the theater lights,” and so the Harmonists’ world avoids glimpses of bread lines in favor of monocles, cigarette holders and evening clothes.

From that night, the film flashes back to a year earlier and a young man named Harry Frommermann (Ulrich Noethen). He’s so poor he eats the birdseed intended for his parrot Paganini, but Frommermann is a dazzling arranger, and he dreams of a vocal group that can breathe life into his charts.

A want ad corrals Robert Biberti (Ben Becker), a bass whose extensive music world contacts, including the serious former opera singer (Heino Ferch) and the Bulgarian singing waiter-Lothario Ari Leschnikoff (Max Tidof), soon bring the group to capacity.

“What I’m planning is totally new, at least in Germany,” Frommermann announces, telling the men that his arrangements are not only extremely difficult but must be made to look easy. Months of overcoat-wearing rehearsals in unheated rooms, plus a stint in a cooperative brothel, follow, and though the group often chafes at the needed discipline, even bad feelings aren’t too troublesome in “The Harmonists.”

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While all this is going on, the shy Frommermann is doing his best to court winsome record store clerk Erma Eggstein (Meret Becker), who also catches the eye of the much more decisive Biberti. Though both men prefer to avoid it, a romantic battle is clearly unavoidable.

Despite their considerable success, what is also in the offing is a confrontation with the omnipotent Nazi regime. At first the shadow of the swastika doesn’t daunt the singers; they believe that, as Erma’s Jewish employer Mr. Grunbaum puts it, “We still live in Germany, there is law and order here and it will stay that way.”

But half of the Harmonists’ six members are Jewish, and they soon learn that the regime’s strict racial laws may prevent them from performing. As with the rest of the film, this dilemma is dramatized in a most conventional way, but the reality behind it adds intrinsic interest to the situation.

Time and again, however, it’s that catchy music and re-creations of the group’s long-forgotten stage numbers that come to the rescue of “The Harmonists.” Both then and now, just hearing those inimitable sounds simply makes you smile.

* MPAA rating: R for some nudity. Times guidelines: The glimpses of nudity are brief and dialogue is occasionally risque.

‘The Harmonists’

Ben Becker: Robert Biberti

Heino Ferch: Roman Cycowski

Ulrich Noethen: Harry Frommermann

Heinrich Schafmeister: Erich A. Collin

Max Tidof: Ari Leschnikoff

Bavaria Film International and Betafilm present a film by Joseph Vilsmaier, released by Miramax Films. Director, executive producer, director of photography Joseph Vilsmaier. Producers Hanno Huth, Reinhard Kloos, Danny Krausz. Screenplay Klaus Richter, based on an idea by Juergen Buescher. Editor Peter R. Adam. Costume designer Ute Hofinger. Music Harald Kloser. Production designer Rolf Zehetbauer. Set designer Bernhard Heinrich. Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes.

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