Director: Reinhold Schunzel
Year: 1933
Country: Germany
Rating: 7.0
The title may ring a bell or two in the heads
of some. It was the original film that had a number of remakes over the years
- the most famous now probably being the 1982 version with Julie Andrews
and James Garner. It is one of those films that from a distance may seem
risqué and slightly out of bounds but underneath the hood, it has
the heart of a sentimental old-fashioned love story. When this very
cute bauble was released in 1933, it may have seemed quaint considering that
Berlin was in the midst of a sexual revolution where anything you fancied
could be found in a club if you knew where to look. Germany was also deep
into the misery of the Great Depression and hyperinflation. Jobs and money
were scarce. 1933 though was a fairly landmark year for Germany. It was the
end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of the Third Reich. It would
not be long before all the sex clubs and gender hopping were out of business.
This type of film perhaps as well though it really is innocent and the female
star was a favorite of Herman Goring. She is delightful as is the film.
Two strangers, Viktor (Herman Thimig) and
Susanne (Renate Müller) are at a talent agency looking for work and
exhibiting their talents when they get the "We will get in touch with you"
routine. Both are broke and near being evicted and begin to chat in commiseration.
Viktor is also sick but has a gig at a small bar doing his female impersonation
act for 10 marks a night. He feels too sick to do it and so convinces Susanne
to take his place - pretend to be a man pretending to be a female. She demurs
and demurs until he finally convinces her that this is her chance for the
big time. And in fact, it is. Susanne soon to be Viktoria is a hit and a
producer hires him/her to go on the road. At the end of every performance,
she rips off her wig to reveal a man and the crowd goes crazy. It is
very amusing at times in a near silent movie slapstick mode. They also
break into singing dialogue at times for no discernible reason.
Viktoria gets an admirer, Robert (Anton
Walbrook) who is among high society but finds himself drawn to Viktoria -
not really in a sexual way but finds him/her magnetic as she walks around
after her act in a tux smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey. The women
are a flutter for the handsome man they think she is. She falls for Robert
and wants to end the charade. A great bar fight occurs when she tries to
flirt with a woman as a man. One big musical number likely influenced by
Busby Berkely. It is directed by Reinhold Schünzel who was Jewish and
got out of Germany sometime after 1937 to Hollywood where he directed The
Ice Follies of 1939 with Joan Crawford and Jimmy Stewart. He was also the
doctor in Hitchcock's Notorious. Walbrook was half Jewish and gay, so he
too wisely skedaddled after 1936 and appeared in classics such as Red Shoes
and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Müller was a huge star in comedies
and musicals - and being blond and blue-eyed she was considered the perfect
Aryan. But she refused to act in propaganda films and mysteriously fell from
a window after being visited by the Gestapo and died in 1937.
