Zum goldenen Ochsen

Schaggi Streuli (1899-1980) was one of the most popular Swiss actors in the 50ies: He embodied the then typical Swiss husband and Pater Familias: "Beneath his rough exterior there beats a heart from gold". The reality, however, is different: Everything around him suffers, he abuses both his wife and his daughter, but in his reflection-less world view "this is how life is". Hervé Dumont, the author of the Swiss Film Compendium from 1896 to 1987, wrote about "Zum Goldenen Ochsen": "Nobody wants to remember this movie". Fact is: Although school-kids were still taught in the 50ies and 60ies that alleged ideal of a "severe, but just father", the Swiss public had enough from Schaggi Streuli in his one and always the same role up to nausea. Not only was this film one the biggest financial disasters in Swiss history, there was not one good critic published. As we learn from Dumont's fine book, the original script, written by the giant Werner Wollenberger, was rewritten totally by Streuli, so that the original satirical-ironical basis line of the story was completely destroyed. Since neither Dumont nor Wyder/Aeppli nor any other reference-work commentary has mentioned it, I still want point to the fact that "Zum Goldenen Ochsen" appears like a parody to Jean Vigo's "L'Atalante" (1928/34). However - Schaggi Streuli is not Pere Jules, Paul Bösiger is not Jean Dasté, and, last but not least, Ursula Kopp (who was not to bad one year ago in Kurt Früh's "Bäckerei Zürrer") is not Dita Parlo: her acting is so miserable that she never got a film role afterward. The story-line so one-dimensional: also here, everything is centered to Streuli, everyone else is a side-kick. Streuli repeats his not so brilliant jokes from "Polizischt Wäckerli" (1955): "So young as he is, I have never been"