Taxi Zum Klo (or ‘Taxi to the Toilet’ in English) was a bit of a hair-raiser in it’s day – and is still likely to have an impact, even on our more robust 21st-century sensibilities.

I saw the movie in the early 80’s so can’t remember the specific storyline. However, I do remember a number of specific scenes – some of them quite vividly!

The one that springs to mind immediately is the water sports scene, wherein director and ‘star’ Frank Riploh is vigorously pissed on by one of sexual partners. The explicitness of the scene was pretty mind-boggling at the time – especially the part where the guy pisses into his mouth. The movie was made pre-AIDS, so consciousness about sexual hygiene wasn’t particularly big then. But it was by the time I saw it, which made that scene a bit of an uncomfortable watch.

In contrast to that episode, the other scenes seem quite tame (or, more precisley, less audacious). Frank – a school teacher in West Berlin – sitting in a public toilet cubicle, simultaneously marking his pupils homework and monitoring/working the glory hole. Frank climbing naked from his neighbour’s balcony back onto his own after he locks himself out whilst trying to steal that neighbour’s newspaper!

Then there’s the eponymous taxi to the toilet. Frank, not yet fully recovered from a bout of hepatitis, still can’t resist the urge to go out and have sex at one of his regular haunts. So, still weak from his illness, he books a taxi to take him there.

The movie was denied UK certification on its initial release, meaning it could only be shown in ‘members-only’ cinemas (if you’ll pardon the pun!). When it was given an R rating it was on the proviso that much of the explicitness was cut out, so the distributors withdrew it from general circulation.

However, it has managed to raise it’s horny little head regularly since that time and, with the passage of time, has been re-released, uncut with an 18 rating.

It’s now a bit of a time piece in more ways than one. We no longer have an ‘East’ and ‘West’ Berlin. And, as mentioned earlier, the advent of HIV/AIDS has – hopefully – had a big impact on some of our sexual practices. So it may still be necessary to watch some scenes with gritted teeth!