Reise ins Ehebett (1966)

The young boatswain on a merchant ship is good at his job, but his adventures with women during shore leave always cause trouble, especially since the whole crew follows his example. The police are regular visitors to the captain, and the innkeepers have already started keeping track of the broken items during the brawls so they can present the sailors with the bill before they set sail. The captain decides that things have to change and hires Eva, a young Polish journalist, to seduce the boatswain and then reject him. In reality, however, the captain hopes that the more difficult conquest of the woman will make his boatswain fall in love with her and eventually agree to marry her. To achieve this, Eva is supposed to pretend to be the captain’s girlfriend. The boatswain duly reacts with jealousy, but once they are out at sea it turns out there is a stowaway on board: the red-haired singer Mary Lou had spontaneously fallen in love ashore with the boatswain, who had given her his apartment key just as he did every woman, and had secretly boarded the ship. She is discovered and, in turn, tells Eva what was really planned. Eva, Mary Lou and the boatswain unexpectedly spend a night together in a ship’s cabin, but the next morning the boatswain tells the captain and Obermeier that he does not want to marry either woman. Things become more complicated. The cabin boy Moses falls in love with Eva, and the captain develops feelings for Mary Lou. It is only during a shore visit in Leningrad that Eva and the boatswain grow closer. When they return home, the police are waiting for the ship and arrest Mary Lou, the stowaway. The captain picks her up at the courthouse—the verdict has not yet been decided—and confesses his love to her on a boat trip. Her planned performances as a singer are now canceled. The boatswain, meanwhile, follows Eva, who has just missed her bus home, and takes her to his apartment. As he carries her into the bedroom, another of the boatswain’s girlfriends is already lying in the bed. The boatswain and Eva run out of the apartment and realize they will have to find a new place to stay. One curiosity is the inquisitive chimpanzee who is part of the ship’s crew (and dressed like the sailors), a nod to the Soviet film comedy Rette sich, wer kann! (1961), which was also popular in the GDR.