Muschimaus mag's grad heraus (4 Stars)

This is the sort of film that seems impossible to defend on paper. The plot is little more than a framework for a string of bawdy encounters, courtroom innuendo and softcore set-pieces. Like many West German sex comedies of the early 1970's, it lives in that awkward territory between liberation and exploitation; half cheeky satire, half commercial nudity reel. Yet the film works far better than expected because of Ulrike Butz.

Butz plays Senta Vukovic with a kind of reckless innocence that keeps the film from collapsing into pure cynicism. Senta is supposedly scandalous, but Butz never portrays her as manipulative or cruel. Instead, she gives the character a disarming openness; almost childlike at times, though never naïve. The performance creates a strange contradiction at the centre of the film. Senta behaves outrageously, yet Butz plays her with such warmth and lack of malice that the audience ends up rooting for her rather than judging her.

That quality was rare in German sexploitation cinema. Many actresses in these films were treated as interchangeable decoration, but Butz had genuine screen presence. The camera constantly gravitates towards her, not simply because of her physical beauty, but because she understands comedy. Her timing matters as much as her nudity. A raised eyebrow, a mischievous smile or the casual confidence with which she walks through increasingly absurd situations gives the film its personality.

Hubert Frank's direction helps. He shoots Butz less as an object and more as a disruptive force moving through conservative Bavarian society. The film repeatedly frames Senta as someone exposing the hypocrisy around her. The men are ridiculous, pompous or sexually frustrated; Senta simply refuses to pretend otherwise. That gives Butz room to play the character as oddly liberated rather than merely promiscuous.

There's also a surprising self-awareness in her performance. Butz occasionally seems to acknowledge the absurdity of the entire enterprise, almost teasing the audience for taking any of it seriously. In another actress's hands, that might have become smug or arch. Butz keeps it playful. She understood that these films were essentially erotic farces, and she performs accordingly.

The film itself remains uneven. Some scenes drag, the slapstick often feels desperate and the episodic structure grows repetitive. Still, Butz carries the material with remarkable ease. Even when the dialogue is weak or the situations verge on nonsense, she remains watchable. That's probably why she became one of the defining faces of the German Report Era.

Looking back now, the most striking thing about "Muschimaus mag's grad heraus" isn't its erotic content but its atmosphere of carefree anarchy. The film belongs to a brief period when West German cinema mixed sexual liberation with broad provincial comedy in a way that now feels culturally alien. Ulrike Butz embodies that moment perfectly. She's simultaneously provocative, approachable, comic and oddly sweet; qualities that elevate the film far beyond what its lurid title might suggest.