Baby Love רומן זעיר ‎(1984)

Baby Love, the fifth instalment of the Lemon Popsicle movies saw an attempt to go back to the earlier roots and capture the magic and drama of the early films. Boaz Davidson opted out of being director for Baby Love, as he was frustrated by having to adapt the series to the international market. “The requests from the German producers were for more and more sex. It felt a little like selling your soul to the devil.” He stayed on board as an adviser and screenwriter alongside Eli Tabor.

Director Dan Wolman was hired after being given the proposed script and kept in touch with writer Davidson on a daily basis, to ensure that the writers vision for the film was met and to be a worthy addition to the Popsicle series.

“While I was shooting the film”, recalls Wolman, “Boaz Davidson was in touch with me daily on the phone (he was in Los Angeles at the time). He would suggest changes within the scenes and changes in the dialogue. I followed the script as much as I could”.

Wolman does a great job at giving Baby Love a personal touch. It is the story of Benji’s love affair with Bobby’s kid-sister and the feud that transpires as a result. The Popsicle tradition of casting virtual unknowns as the leading lady continued and saw German actress Stefanie Petsch as Bobby’s younger sister. The film was shot in Hebrew but since Stefanie was German, she had to learn the Hebrew text and was later dubbed.

Jonathan Sagall who played Bobby was given a larger role in the films narrative, and cites that Baby Love is his favourite amongst the Popsicle movies. “Part 5 was my favourite” says Sagall when interviewed, “when the honourable makers the Pops discovered Bobby can actually talk”.

Other Popsicle regular Bea Fiedler returned as the nymphomaniac dental nurse, and also Dolly Dollar joined the cast in an amusing turn as Benji’s visiting cousin. Dolly Dollar (real name Christine Zierl) had previously worked with Zachi Noy in several movies and was more associated with glamour modelling.

Production of Baby Love went smoothly and was shot in around six weeks. During production, a Japanese television crew came to Israel and produced a short documentary while travelling the country with the stars.Upon it’s release, all three of the lead cast were sent to a promotional tour in Japan, and the film was a success at the box office.