Somewhere in Southern Bavaria Xaver wants to marry Gretel, but her father Kohlhiesel wants his elder daughter Liesel to marry first. The problem is, nobody wants to marry her, because she's too brutal. Seppel suggests, that he should marry Liesel first, get rid of her and then he can marry Gretel...

Wealthy John Glidden wants to give his money away to strangers rather than have his relatives fight over it. We see the effect the gifts have on many different sorts of individuals.

The favorite slave girl of a tyrannical sheik falls in love with a cloth merchant. Meanwhile, a hunchback clown suffers unrequited love for a traveling dancer who wants to join the harem.@

A charismatic lieutenant newly assigned to a remote fort is captured by a group of mountain bandits, thus setting in motion a madcap farce that is Lubitsch at his most unrestrained. A wonderfully anarchic and playfully subversive satire of military life from one of the great comedy filmmakers.

Very entertaining silent film about cute, lively young Ossi, a tomboy full of a fun-loving spirit, she likes to smoke, drink booze, stick out her tongue, and play poker with her male chums - but her guardian and governess want her to behave like a "proper young lady". Wishing she were "born a boy" she heads to a local men's store and has herself fitted for an evening suit. Soon she's out on the streets in top hat, white tie, and tails, her hair groomed like a boy's, she rides the street car, and goes to a ballroom where she's soon drinking champagne and smoking cigars, flirting with (and even kissing) her own guardian - and he think's she's a fellow!
This film is full of charm and loads of fun, in many ways due to the delightful and well done performance given by Ossi Oswalda, a very likable young actress, totally tops in cute and charming! The DVD of this has a nice looking black and white print and includes an extremely appealing, lively piano score by Neil Brand that is the perfect accompaniment to this film.

1916 film by Ernst Lubitsch

戲名難免使人聯想到食色「性」也，但慾望的對象？對不起，卻是個男兒。美國蠔業大王有個刁蠻女，一天覺得自己非要嫁人不可，被媒人相中的落難歐洲王子派出心腹試探虛實，蠔女一聲多謝馬上拉去註冊結婚，當晚大排筵席，酒飽飯醉後只差沒半點洞房動機。直至窮王子真人現眼前，慾望傾瀉得一發不可收拾。女性情慾在劉別謙筆下從來都很坦然和直接，蠔女這荷里活女性原型，令後來者亦甘拜下風。揶揄資本家與消費社會的大場面可觀亦抵死，筆觸細膩幽默。劉別謙第二部長片，是他打造品牌之作，驚人的成熟導技令人擊節復感動。

Everything Lubitsch learned about the art of comedy in his German period comes to a grand summation in this saber-sharp satire on the crass materialism of America's nouveau riche, and the pompous airs of the declining European aristocracy. Ossi, daughter of the oyster tycoon (but more like Attila the Hun than an heiress), demands a prince when the Shoe-cream King's daughter lands a count. Prince Nucky is chosen for his title and his debts. But when he sends his bald friend Josef to call on Ossi, he is mistaken for the prince. What follows is the most Gargantuan wedding feast ever filmed, with an assembly of 300 hired waiters and a peevish subversion of gender roles.

Source: 28th HKIFF

一部給低估了的傑作，鑑於前作被指離經叛道，劉別謙改拍童話式故事，拍出令德國人瞠目結舌的格調與清新幽默感，論者認為它比《卡里加里醫生的密室》更應名垂青史（兩片其實是雙生兒，只是主角一個作惡一個行善）。不肯成長的男孩被叔父強迫娶妻，玩具大王借女兒的模樣造出機械公仔，演出一幕騙婚記，但竟弄假成真。幕開只見我們的導演跑出來，用紙板砌出人與物，接着疊現真實畫面。戲演下去，所有場景透視詭異，道具有時索性繪在牆上。全片優美且自由奔放，活像頑童開心炮製的藝術品。值得一看的還有德國默片女星奧茜奧華黛的傳奇身影。

Proceeding The Cabinet of Dr Caligari by one year, this is both vintage early Lubitsch with its sly slapstick and Rabelaisian humour, and the only work that shares the subliminal, hallucinatory style of German expressionism. He exhibits a blinding array of camera effects, like an astounding shot of a dozen images of mouths in one frame. Also ahead of his time is an opening scene with Lubitsch himself constructing a miniature stage contraption that becomes the film set. A Pirandelloesque concept of art and artifice informs the Hoffman-inspired story about a man who purchases a life-sized doll to stand in for a bride. He gets more than he bargained for - the owner's daughter pretending to be doll!

Source: 28th HKIFF

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.