Die vollkommene Ehe - Das Leben zu zweit

The genre of sex education-movies boomed massively in Germany in the late Sixties. Based on a (more or less) scientific plot the audience was for the first time confronted with bare facts in form of nudity. In this category successful director Franz Josef Gottlieb shot several pictures even for Oswalt Kolle, the originator of the genre. For production company “Rialto Film” however he adapted a 40 year old book by the Dutch gynecologist Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde to create two (pseudo-) scientific movies for the eager audience: The Perfect Marriage (1968) and Every Night of the Week (1969).

Producer Horst Wendlandt asked his friend Peter Thomas (“Space Patrol”, “Jerry Cotton”) to compose original scores for both films. Until then they had worked together in numerous “Edgar Wallace” films and other blockbusters.

Peter Thomas got honoured with the German Composers Award for his lifework in 2009.

Atypically for veteran sound pioneer Thomas his score to “The Perfect Marriage“ is outrageously romantic and of an eroticizing intensity, and the work holds an exceptional position in the composer’s ouvre.

Unfortunatelythis supreme accomplishment could be heard infrequently. Almost the complete opposite is the score to “Every Night of the Week“. Here the composer is in his element again; contemporary jazz and beat arrangements, and unconventional use of the human voice dominate. Together both scores deliver a fascinating insight into the mastery of one of the most prominent composers of the German motion picture industry.

Besides this release is a real world premiere: Most of the tracks, so the complete score of “Every Night of the Week” have been discovered in the archives only now, 40 years after their recording. Just some titles from “The Perfect Marriage” have been released once in Canada on one of the rarest soundtrack LPs ever.

The CD packaging is as always designed stylish and comes with a 24 pages booklet including detailed liner notes by Peter Thomas’ biographer Gerd Naumann (“Der Filmkomponist Peter Thomas“, ibidem-Verlag 2009) and an essay on sex education-movies by film journalist Marco Geßner, both in German and English language, as well as some extraordinary full size color film stills.