|
Three reels of ticklish tumult to illustrate Ernst Lubitsch's dictum about having a circus within you in order to play comedy. The bourgeois lady (Kitty Dewall) wakes to a vacant bed, she hears the doorbell and practices her wagging finger, it's the mailman with an arrest warrant for her husband. Said husband (Harry Liedtke) is found passed out on the study floor with rumpled tuxedo and upturned top hat, just the kind of carousing that's earned him one day behind bars. (Money for a new hat smooths out any conjugal tension.) The sentence can't compete with invitations to the Prince's gala ball, the wife's ticket comes with advice from her sister: "If someone wants to kiss you, don't giggle. It's not chic." The boulevardier first glimpsed on a boutique mirror (Erich Schönfelder) is mistaken for the wanted playboy, might as well smooch the missus before the police come, repeatedly. The cheeky servant (Agda Nilsson) completes the equation, puffing on a cigar while doing the dishes, helping herself to plateful after plateful of goose liver as "Countess Tutti Frutti." The Strauss operetta played saltando, the Lubitsch polish is still nascent but the Lubitsch gusto is already in full sway. The grand dance has waltzing circles and roller skates with balloons, the opposite arena is the tiny jail where prisoners play cards and Emil Jannings reigns with fuller-brush mustache and wobbly gait, practically a one-man Keystone Kops brigade. "He who loves his wife leaves her at home," declares the dolt to his masked beloved as she filches his wedding ring. It all ends on a broad smile and a distant foregleam of Eyes Wide Shut. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |