Oktoberfest 1900 is a 2020 German-Czech historical miniseries. It is adapted from the novel Oktoberfest 1900 - Träume und Wagnis by Petra Gill.
The series is set in Bavaria, Imperial Germany, in 1900. Curt Prank is a rich newcomer from Franconia with a shady past. He arrives in Munich, and he is determined to become the main attraction at the Oktoberfest with his own brewery and make the event bigger than it ever was before, intending to do so by way of building a giant castle-shaped tent to use as beer hall. He is also ruthless and will use any mean necessary. When his daughter falls in love with the heir to a rival brewery, a violent chain of events is unleashed that will threaten both families' futures.
The series premiered on the ARD/Das Erste channel in Germany on September 15, 2020, and is streamed by Netflix internationally as Oktoberfest: Beer & Blood since.
This series provides examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Dirty Old Man Anatol Stifter takes an interest in Kurt's young daughter Klara.
- Accent Adaptation: In the English dub, all the Bavarians have broad West Country accents to emphasize Bavaria's status as a rural, conservative region of Germany. Kurt, being from the more industrialised, urbanised Prussia north of Bavaria, has a Northern English accent.
- Big Fancy Castle: Curt Prank calls his giant tent-like structure a "beer castle" ("Bierburg"), and it does have the shape of one.
- Blackmail: Prank goads Alfons Urban into working for him by threatening to reveal Urban's infidelity and the bastard child that resulted from it to his wife and his father.
- Beware the Silly Ones: The senile old man in the beer cartel seems to be there for comic relief, but he is really the Big Bad whom Stifter reports to.
- Bald of Evil: On the old man.
- Break the Cutie: After the deaths of Ignatz and Ludwig, Maria goes insane and is detained in a mental hospital.
- Bury Your Gays: Ludwig is Driven to Suicide when the recording of him having sex with Gustav is shown in the cinema.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Ignatz Hoflinger is strangled and beheaded by Kurt's henchman, and the Hollywood Natives performing in the carnival are blamed.
- The Chessmaster: Stifter is a nasty, devious little man who pits Prank and the brewers' cartel against each other. If Prank wins, they would become partners and he would marry Clara. If the cartel wins, Stifter can take over Prank's beer tent.
- Christianity is Catholic: The priest at the local church sings in Latin. Bavaria has always been a religiously conservative region of Germany, and Upper Bavaria in particular is overwhelmingly Catholic.
- Camp Gay: Pretty Boy Ludwig Hoflinger is a sensitive mother's boy with no interest in women but a talent for painting. He ends up in a Love Triangle with gay artist Gustav and his lover.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The beggar Kurt befriends as a kid is large and intimidating, but he protects Kurt from the mob of local brewers that beats his father.
- Double Meaning: Gustav tells the nude model to leave, and he will pay him tomorrow. The fee could have been for posing, but it's equally likely to have been for sex.
- The Dandy: Gustav dresses up in flamboyant costumes.
- Kurt also as a thing for elaborate silk waistcoats and brightly colored cravats.
- Dirty Coward: Gustav runs away when the police raid the bohemians' room, and leaves Ludwig to be beaten by a policeman.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: It's no coincidence that Ludwig resembles a young Adolf Hitler whose still-life drawings were derided by the new school of Impressionists. Anyone from the prewar generation could have transformed From Nobody to Nightmare.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Klara goes through a lot of trauma including running away from home and working in a brothel before she can finally marry her sweetheart Roman.
- Genre Savvy: Klara's chaperone Colina immediately realises Klara had sex with Roman when she came home from the servants' party without her underwear. She suspects Klara's sickness might be a sign of pregnancy, so she injects her with vinegar to force a miscarriage.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: Almost everyone has a nasty streak. The only truly good characters are Klara, Ludwig and possibly Inspector Eder.
- The Gay '90s: The series is set in 1900, which means it still displays the costumes and mindsets of the past decade while welcoming a new century.
- Gayngst-Induced Suicide: After realising that Gustav has many other lovers and was aware that the sexual encounter was being filmed, Ludwig throws himself out of the window.
- Gorgeous Period Dress: Prank's daughter Clara wears a nice assortment of dresses and High-Class Gloves from the era.
- Historical Domain Character: Gustav's friends include a Russian called Vladimir who escaped into exile after planning a revolution. See also Chummy Commies.
- I Choose to Stay: Roman seriously considers starting a new life in Chicago with Klara, but has a change of heart and believes it is his destiny to take over the family brewery after Ludwig's death.
- I Want Grandkids: Maria says this to Ludwig several times, unaware that he is gay.
- Kick the Dog: In 1861 Kurt and his father travel to Munich to sell their first beer. A jealous gang of local brewers attacks Kurt's father.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After destroying Ludwig's reputation with the sex recording, Stifter also falls victim to the camera. He is kicked out of the brewers' cartel when Roman shows them a video of him adding molasses to his beer to keep the prices low.
- Lead Detective: Inspector Eder investigates the strange murder of Roman and Ludwig's father Ignatz.
- Man of the City: Prank basically ambitions to become this in Munich by amplifying the scale of the Oktoberfest with his project, but the means he uses to that end are far from being benevolent.
- Pornstache: Prank's mustache is in this style.
- Pet the Dog: As a boy, Kurt gives half his apple to a hungry beggar.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: A Fat Bastard grabs Klara when she is working as a beer maid. Colina batters him with a beer tankard, and throws him out to be beaten by the bouncers.
- Steampunk: There's a steam tractor powering a crane, and an experimental steam-powered dynamo that lights up the sideshow.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: The cartel do everything in their power to stop Kurt's Prussian brewery participating in the festival. First they only permit Bavarian beer, then they limit the number of beer tents to seven, and finally they only allow the largest local breweries to take part. Kurt gets around the red tape firstly by marking his own beer barrels with the logo of Bavarian breweries, and then by forming a partnership with Roman to build a new Bavarian brewery larger than the competitors.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Gustav tries to do this after fighting with Ludwig, but Ludwig pushes him away and ends their relationship.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: The incontinent Evil Cripple was the one who instigated the fatal beating of Kurt's father 40 years earlier.
- Toilet Humour: The old man who leads the brewers' cartel is wheelchair-bound, and pisses in bottles because he can no longer walk. He shows his disapproval of The Dragon Stifter's methods by emptying the contents all over his shoes.
- The Savage Indian: Subverted. Everyone thinks the Samoans are murderous cannibals, but they are actually harmless.
- The Unfavorite: Maria tells Roman he had been a hindrance all his life, first to her ambitions to becoming an independent female brewer, and then because he was favored over her by Ignatz.
- Villain Protagonist: At best, Prank is a ruthless, callous and greedy Anti-Hero, but the audience still roots for him.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Ludwig is distraught when he realises he was filmed having sex with Gustav, but Gustav is delighted by the notoriety.
- You Killed My Father: For the first five episodes, Kurt seems to be an innovative brewer who wants a piece of the action in Munich. In reality he is solely motivated by Revenge on the old man who controls the brewers' cartel
