'Yes sister, no sister' as well as 'Minoes' are film adaptations of books and plays by Annie M.G. Schmidt. She is to the Dutch what Astrid Lindgren is to the Swedish. Both 'yes sister' and 'Minoes' have really touched the atmosphere in Schmidts books. You have read them when you were young and life was good and simple, and so are the movies. 'Yes sister' was also a very famous show in the 1960's. Most of the Dutch of that generation know the songs by heart, while other songs like 'mijn opa' (My grandfather! No one like him in all of Europe!) belong to our national song culture. It's not just the actors that start singing in the movie, is is the audience as well. Loes Luca, the leading actress in 'Yes sister' is the perfect choice to play the role of sister Klivia. She is from the city of Rotterdam and still has the Rotterdam accent. She's sharp, bossy, witty, weird and has a very personal charm about her. The other characters in 'yes sister' are also perfectly casted. Watching this movie is seeing some of the best actors we have in the Netherlands: Arjan Ederveen, Paul de Leeuw, Olga Zuiderhoek, Paul Kooij and others.

I grew up with Ja Zuster Nee Zuster in the sixties in the Netherlands and to this day I still whistle many of the tunes from this brilliant children's program that aired '67/'68. The producers could have pumped in some extra money and 'hired' the Dam Square for their dance numbers, but they decided to keep it '67-campy and filmed it on a back lot. Many tongue-in-cheek references to that era: on the TV we see the baptism of Prince Willem Alexander, watch 'het Dafje' driving by, the winking picture of then Queen Juliana. The actors are acceptable, but I reminisce about the original performances by Leen Jongewaard, Hetty Blok and Wim Sonneveld. The current 'Nurse Klivia' does a mediocre 'Groningen' accent and mixes it with an Amsterdam accent. Hetty would cringe... . And yes, Annie M.G. Schmidt did write those lyrics to 'Fuchsia' on purpose. A final word: Please, please a P.C. Hooft Award for Annie. Posthumously, but NOW!

Maybe you won't get to experience a full Castro Theater singing along with the star of the movie, but I think you'll enjoy it almost as much as I did! And while it played in the 27th San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, it isn't really a Gay film. It's just a movie that has a special appeal to a Gay audience. I doubt that most of the audience speaks Dutch. I doubt that most of the audience had ever heard any of the songs. I had no idea that this movie had its origins in a long lost '60s Dutch TV series. None of this mattered. The movie was silly and just plain fun. The characters burst out in song and start dancing. There were bits and pieces that reminded me of '60s American musical and others that reminded me of British sit-coms. There were heroes and villains. There is growth and change. The Dutch Queen even comes to visit. Yes Nurse, No Nurse could never have been made in the US. And that's a good thing.

This is a remake of an old tv series from the sixties which was very popular in Holland. The songs are classic and everybody knows them so everything could go wrong with this movie. Instead the film is a wonderful delight a tribute to the original. It's over the top, sometimes a bit camp but so funny! Go and see it in the cinema; the 'big' musical need it!