Such a charmer. It certainly feels like a Lubitsch film, as it pushes boundaries with sex but in a playful way, makes cheeky observations about human behavior, and has entertaining characters skating along in a light comedy. Pretty impressive, especially for 1919, and well worth 66 minutes.
Some of the bits I liked:
- Seeing Lubitsch himself as the film begins, setting up the doll house which the characters then inhabit.
- The performances from Ossi Oswalda (the daughter/doll) and Gerhard Ritterband (the young apprentice). Oswalda's facial expressions and body control as the doll are wonderful, and Ritterband imitations of his boss were amusing. I also chuckled when he kisses his boss's wife after having kissed the doll, "Just so no one feels neglected," and how he later says he's throwing himself out the window out of shame, only to slide out easily from the first story.
- The artistry in the set designs, which while not boldly Expressionistic, have quite a flair, making the film a treat visually. You also get a couple of clearly fake horses, little effects like a montage of close-ups of chattering mouths, a transparency during a dream sequence, and a man's hair turning white when he gets shocking news.
- The doll being advertised as follows: "Offered to bachelors, widowers, and misogynists! I have succeeded, with the help of a mechanism I built, in constructing a human-like doll who can walk, dance, and sing by pushing different buttons." And as an aside, the toymaker has designed it to look like his daughter, even though it's a short leap to think of it as a sex doll being peddled to lonely (and abusive?) men, how creepy is that?
- The priests chowing down food like pigs, not wanting to share, and then finagling their way into getting their hands on the boy's dowry. One of them later ogles the "doll's" legs while she's dancing.
- The family members arguing over possessions before a loved one has even passed away, breaking a vase in the process.
- How the guy who is afraid of girls goes from being chased all over town by 40 young women who all want to marry him to being in the showroom at the dollmaker's, confronted by (probably 40, the same 40) dolls who all hop over to him eagerly, nodding their heads.
- The various innuendo once the young man does take possession of what he thinks is a doll. The toymaker tells him "Don't forget to oil her every two weeks." His father asks him whether he wants any last advice before leaving for the first night of his marriage, to which he replies "No thanks, I have an instruction manual." Oh my goodness, if this isn't classic Ernst Lubitsch, I don't know what is.
