The Love Bug Rally
The Love Bug Rally
| 21 June 1975 (USA)
The Love Bug Rally Trailers

A German race car driver in a yellow love bug named Dudu teams up with a Scottish driver in a hovercraft to win a race in the African desert.

Reviews
InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Ein Käfer geht aufs Ganze" or "Superbug" or " The Love Bug Rally" is a West German German-language film from 1971, so it has its 45th anniversary this year. The director is Rudolf Zehetgruber and the writer is Alexander de Callier, but I am actually not sure if this is Zehetgruber himself as he wrote all the other "Käfer" films, one of them also under an alias. And I already mentioned that there are more of these films. This one here was the beginning of the series and 3 more films followed in the next four years and a fifth film in the late 80s. In terms of German cinema, there is lots of good in the 1970s (Herzog, Fassbinder, Wenders for example), but there is also lots of trash and this one here is an example for the latter really. But I guess it must have been successful enough with audiences because otherwise Zehetgruber would not have made all these sequels. Oh yeah, Zehetgruber also acts himself in all these films, usually even in a lead role. So yeah, what else is there to say about this one. I guess the rally aspect is what it has and the sequels don't which is an advantage, but overall the story still was so forgettable and yet over the top that it was not an interesting watch at all. The film runs for slightly over 90 minutes and this is basically true for all the movies. I give it a thumbs-down. You need to loves Käfer cars really a lot to appreciate this film.
payoguiri This film is the beginning of the mythic "Dudu-series"! Tansania, Africa is the location where Ben (in the following Dudu-films he's called Jimmy Bondie) meets with his ADAC*-Bug!Why Tansania? It has been a German colony far in the past. In the 70ies there had been many so called "East-African-Safaries" and this film deals with one of those Ralleys through the whole country! Now there appears a greedy and ambitious Baron who is obsessed with winning the race for any price. His stupid wife, brought him "the fastest car in the world", the cheep Hollywood requisite "Herbie"!!! (here is built the connection between the famous 50ies/60ies "Herbie-Films" from Disney) But the Baron is disappointed, because the white bug with the number 53 only has scrap value! Anyway the Baron makes a road test through the Serengeti with the bug after having painted it yellow. But ex-Herbie has its own head and does what he wants, especially when it is insulted.Dudu crashes against Ben's bike and stops when Ben shout "stop"! The Baron apologizes himself and changes the bug for the bike. Since then Ben is the new owner of Dudu, what means "bug" or "little insect" in Suaheli, the native language of Tansania. Ben decides to participate in the rally, but he only becomes the "Service-Car" of Mr. Buttler, a Scotsman who wants to win the race with a hovercraft! And because both motors are from Volkswagen Dudu is accepted to be the service car (therefore the allusion of ADAC, the famous German car insurance-company) Many times there appear some scenes of animal and rally documentations, which are mixed with the actual film. But I think that's done in a relatively good way although it often makes you smile anyway!Maybe the plot is seems to be confusing, but in the German version it is almost clear and entertaining (later Dudu gets involved in a diamond smuggling problem etc.).The cool thing is that Dudu becomes in the further films an own character or identity. He does not maintain the Herbie-Soul, but becomes a computer controlled car so that he stops being a total copy of Herbie!
Cactus-5 I remember seeing all of the Käfer-movies when I was a kid, and vaguely recall them being about a guy with his car Dodo or Dudde. This car has a computer controlling it, which means it talks, and drives a bit as it likes. I also remember I thoroughly enjoyed them, even though they were dubbed to english from german, because they were mad and had a lot of fun gags.