Warum die UFOs unseren Salat klauen (1980)

A “bang” has occurred on Earth, and the crew of a spaceship hidden in orbit wants to get to the bottom of it. The event is evidently connected to Peter McDonald, an ecologically minded idealist and Scottish-Bavarian amateur biologist who grew up in Bavaria as the son of a “Nobel whore.” The aliens follow his activities on a screen for analysis. To them, Earth is a “green colony,” which they regard as irreplaceable. The five gray-clad members of the UFO crew—three men and two women—watch as McDonald uses a clever maneuver to stop a car and persuade its driver, Consul Dr. h.c. Meyer, to give him and his bicycle a lift. Meyer is not only a supposed academic and restaurant critic but also the owner of a steakhouse chain. He is receptive to McDonald’s concept of a super-salad that needs no dressing because it naturally tastes of vinegar, oil, spices, and onions. McDonald had been living and experimenting at his grandmother’s, but after her death he decided to travel to Berlin to see his mother, who he believes runs a flower shop there. Meyer gives McDonald some French delicacies and drops him off on the outskirts of Berlin. There, McDonald accidentally disrupts the filming of a movie about the final phase of World War II. His appearance unsettles the actor playing Adolf Hitler so much that the actor first insults him and then pursues him in frustration. Fleeing from the Hitler impersonator, McDonald accidentally rides his bicycle onto the Avus motorway. He becomes the subject of a local traffic-radio report as a wrong-way driver, and is eventually arrested by the police. At the station, he is initially treated as a potential criminal because, in the investigating officers’ eyes, the unusually large quantity of exclusive French food in his backpack makes him suspicious. But when they discover that his mother runs the Salon Flora International, McDonald is released and escorted to her address by a motorcycle escort. It turns out that Salon Flora is not a flower shop, as he had originally thought, but an upscale brothel where well-to-do clients are secretly spied on and filmed. McDonald’s mother offers to sell her business to provide him with enough money to cultivate his super-salad variety. He indignantly refuses and rides off. Shortly afterward, Consul Meyer arrives at Salon Flora, and it becomes clear that he and McDonald’s mother apparently have a personal relationship as well as a business arrangement. They blackmail the brothel’s clients to secure investment opportunities and subsequently profit from conflicts around the world. Monika, the consul’s daughter, also knows about the arrangement, but breaks with her father and sets up her own bakery. Meanwhile, McDonald has slept on a bench and is woken by a woman who offers him a place to sleep and a new bicycle, but he declines. When the stranger tries to kiss him, he runs away, leaving his backpack and provisions behind. In another encounter with the police, even his last bit of money is taken from him. That evening, hungry, McDonald stands in Monika’s bakery and unsuccessfully tries to steal a loaf of bread. The two become friends, and the next day Monika takes him to a strange allotment-garden complex where she stores the ingredients for her bakery. McDonald is supposed to make himself useful in the garden and is given a place to sleep. The allotment colony is home to a variety of characters, including a failed tanker captain who wants to join the circus, an academically accomplished couple active in social causes, and a senator accompanied by his two bodyguards. McDonald gets to work in a garden plot provided for him and develops his salad variety, which the aliens watch with interest. After a garden party at the allotment colony, it becomes clear that something is wrong with McDonald’s super-salad. People who eat it fall into a trance and develop delusions, while vehicles that come into contact with it can suddenly travel twice as fast as before. Meanwhile, some of the super-salad, which the senator’s suspicious bodyguards had prudently sent away, is examined in a laboratory. A guinea pig given a few leaves of salad as a test turns into a pig. In addition, several explosions during the examination lead the lab workers to believe that an assassination attempt on the senator is being planned. Monika and McDonald miss the ensuing raid on the allotment colony—which leaves four police cars wrecked—because they have already escaped on their motorcycle, now super-fast thanks to a tankful of super-salad. An American military-police patrol they encounter on a forest road drives over a head of lettuce, which detonates beneath the vehicle’s tires. At the same time, the lab workers’ report alerts the military and the Berlin police to the super-salad’s potential. The military, however, suspects that aliens are responsible for the explosions, which are perceived as attacks. While fleeing, McDonald falls off the motorcycle on a forest road along with a few heads of super-salad, without Monika noticing. Several heads then tumble down a wooded slope and explode among a group of American soldiers, which the military command again interprets as an alien attack. When a Russian jet bomber is also reported and the U.S. president gets involved, a general mobilization is ordered. Meanwhile, the dazed McDonald is captured in the woods by two Russian pilots, an incident witnessed by a group of American soldiers. The situation is further complicated when the actor playing Hitler is driven through the forest in a black Mercedes limousine. Shortly afterward, McDonald and the two Russian pilots are themselves arrested by mounted Berlin police officers. The American commander, the mayor of Berlin, and the police chief learn of this with satisfaction at the laboratory, where a makeshift command center has since been set up. A further intervention by the U.S. president reveals that the two Russian pilots are not an invading force: They had to bail out of their aircraft after their jet bomber accidentally crashed into the U.S. military’s radar station. As the geopolitical situation visibly eases, the Hitler impersonator returns to the film set and, with an improvised speech, persuades the extras in the war movie to work for free from then on. Once tensions with Russia have subsided and the supposed sudden appearance of Hitler has also been explained, the military’s investigation focuses once again entirely on McDonald. He is interrogated at the American sector’s headquarters, but steadfastly denies any involvement in international espionage and is eventually released. However, his salad crop, a sample of which has been stolen from the laboratory, gradually spreads throughout the world and is subjected to scientific tests by various nations. This brings McDonald back to the military’s attention; by now, they have correctly linked him to the allotment colony. Meanwhile, the situation there grows increasingly tense because Consul Meyer is trying to raze the grounds with the help of the police to make way for new building plots. Monika confesses to her fellow gardeners that she is Meyer’s daughter and that the property will pass to her as an inheritance if she gets married. At the gate, McDonald’s mother meanwhile halts the police attack by starting an impromptu dance show, successfully distracting the officers assigned to clear the site. Amid the confusion, Monika and McDonald escape from the allotment colony disguised as bulky waste. Consul Meyer repeatedly tries to have the gate, still blocked by wrecked police cars, bulldozed, but these efforts are finally stopped by the military commander. He first damages an excavator with a tank and, after a bombastic speech, drives into the allotment colony himself. But he does not find the wanted McDonald there: he and Monika have already reached a church, where they marry in the presence of Monika’s father and McDonald’s mother. After the wedding, the two set off in a wedding carriage with the tanker captain, and the American commander pursues them in his tank. When the tank, through another disastrous mistake, destroys a GDR troops’ watchtower on the East Berlin side, World War III breaks out and the Earth goes up in flames. After a brief discussion, the aliens decide to undo the events and activate a time machine. This prevents the tank from firing, and the border incident never occurs. Monika and McDonald are able to continue their wedding day undisturbed and go sailing with the tanker captain. However, he is an East German spy and tries to hand McDonald over to the National People’s Army (NVA). This brings two Berlin police divers into action, since they have been listening in on the tanker captain’s radio communications with the border guards. Monika and McDonald are rescued from the captain’s sailboat just in time, while he escapes in an amphibious sports coupé. Satisfied with the outcome of their intervention, the aliens set off for Venus to grow salad there.