Ich möchte kein Mann sein

Frau Ossi ( Frau Ossi Oswalda ) is a good example of how modern were the Teutonic frauleins at the beginning of the last century; youngsters ahead of their time who influenced future generations of women to forget old habits and behaviours. The girlies of today should be being thankful to those old but modern German frauleins, certainly.

For example, Frau Ossi, a bourgeois fraulein, likes very much to play cards and drink with the servants, not to mention smoking cigarettes. She wants to be on equal terms with her male partners, something her father and governess think is very indecorous behaviour for a serious Teutonic girl. However, Frau Ossi is a very modern and unconventional fraulein who doesn't respect old social Teutonic ways. She doesn't hesitate to break the rules and behave like a man but pretty soon Frau Ossi discovers that it's not easy being a man (especially a genuine German aristocrat) going to balls day after day and trying to look good in a tuxedo.

"Ich Möchte Kein Mann Sein" ( I Don't Want To Be A Man ) (1918) is one of those three reel early Herr Lubitch comedies, deliciously funny and very characteristic of Herr Lubitsch's German first period. Typical of these medium-lengths Herr Lubitsch films is a quick rhythm, hilarious situations, many misunderstandings and of course a crowded bourgeoisie ball. The latter features a most peculiar orchestra led by a frantic conductor. It's the usual war between the sexes and the upending of gender stereotypes, full of "joie de vivre" and performances that suit light comedy.

"Ich Möchte Kein Mann Sein" stars Herr Lubitsch's first muse, Frau Ossi Oswalda, a charming but Germanic actress who collaborated with the Teutonic director in this early German period before the appearance of Frau Pola Negri in his artistic life. His subsequent films were more ironic, sophisticated and sexual but the early presence of such themes can be appreciated in films like "Ich Möchte Kein Mann Sein" with the help of madcap Frau Oswalda. The film seems light, even deliciously superficial but this Herr Graf would say that the simplicity is deceptive and underlying it is an elaborate and difficult cinematic technique of which Herr Lubitsch was a master.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must behave not as a man, but as an aristocrat.

This is a an excellent comedy vehicle for German silent film star Ossi Oswalda. She plays a young tomboy who, unable to leave the house at night in female attire, dresses up as a boy and has a whale of a time at a local dance. She attracts the - unwelcome - attention of a gaggle of females, flirts outrageously with one man, makes fun of others kissing, and ends up spending the evening with another young man. There are some very funny farcical routines - notably one scene where Ossi, apparently drunk, tries her best not to go into the gents restroom, moves towards the ladies, and is shooed away by some irate women. Eventually she and the young man travel home together, and end up in one another's arms kissing. Lubitsch's film offers some of the challenges to gender stereotypes that would be offered a decade and a half later in Hollywood films such as QUEEN Christina (1932). Oswalda makes a convincing man, proving beyond doubt that male courtship rituals are simple, to say the least. The action rattles along at a brisk pace, leading to a predictable conclusion, but ICH MOCHTE KEIN MANN SEIN remains highly watchable.

Homoeroticism, transvestitism, gender confusion, dominance and submission, borderline pedophilia — there has never been another, and certainly will never be another like Ernst Lubitsch. No one who's familiar with his films could ever be surprised to see the myriad of taboo subjects covered in "I Don't Want To Be a Man", but even I was flabbergasted a few times in this one. You won't see many 1910s films like it. In fact, you won't see many 2010s films like it. And any you do see will certainly not have Lubitsch's inimitable gift for tackling such controversial material with such a light, innocuous hand ("the Lubitsch touch", as they call it).

Lubitsch left Germany and came to Hollywood in 1923, and the American film industry would never be the same. He brought with him his sophistication, his innuendo, and his playful mischievousness. He introduced Hollywood to sex. He pioneered the cinematic musical, making the first ever truly modern musical with "The Love Parade" in '29. His influence on American cinema is as great as anyone's since Griffith.

Most of us know Lubitsch from either his run of musicals — "The Love Parade", "Monte Carlo", "The Smiling Lieutenant", and "One Hour With You" — or his subsequent non-musicals, "Trouble in Paradise" and "Design for Living". That lattermost film was made in 1933, the last year before the Hays Code was enforced, and therefore, the last year that Lubitsch would ever be able to be the filmmaker he was born to be. Lubitsch's gift was to make comedy out of contentious subject matter, and so for a director who thrived off of suggestion and sexual innuendo, the Hays Code was effectively the end of Lubitsch. Of course, he made some good films after that — "To Be or Not To Be" and "Heaven Can Wait" came in the early '40s, and were both quality films — but Lubitsch would never again be able to make films that genuinely reflected his true nature as a filmmaker, and his unique sensibilities as an artist.

I think a little bit of censorship, however, was good for Lubitsch. The Hays Code obviously involved far too much of it, but even before '34 when the code really kicked in, there was still censorship. The standards were much looser, but there were standards, nonetheless. And so Lubitsch was forced to express things implicitly that he might otherwise have expressed more explicitly, to much lesser effect. The waggish innuendo that was Lubitsch's bread and butter was necessitated by the presence of censorship. Without some degree of censorship, his films would probably lack some of the qualities he's now famous for.

"I Don't Want To Be a Man" is a good example of this. The restrictions placed on filmmakers in the late 1910s in Germany were clearly even slacker than those in Hollywood's pre-code era, and so many of these early German silents by Lubitsch are more forthright and candid in their treatment of controversial subject matter than his American films were. In a way that makes them all the more riotously entertaining, but it also deprives them of that wink-of-the-eye style of suggestive humor that was Lubitsch's greatest asset as a filmmaker.

There's another reason these early silents by Lubitsch are interesting: They were made prior to the expressionist movement in German cinema. All of the German films I've seen from the '20s can be classified as either part of the German expressionist movement or the New Objectivity movement (an early movement in cinematic social realism). These Lubitsch films, however, from the years before expressionism catapulted German cinema to new levels of popularity, belong to neither movement. So I'm happy to see some German silents that aren't so easily categorized.

Truly, "I Don't Want To Be a Man" transcends classification. Almost never before have I seen such a plethora of taboo subjects in one film. We've seen some of these themes in other Lubitsch films, like the homoeroticism in "Design for Living" (though it was dialed down from Coward's source material), but to see so many of them crammed together into one 45-minute film was quite a ride. However controversial the subjects may have been, though, their treatment was as innocent as can be imagined. Everything in a Lubitsch film is lighthearted by nature.

Saying that a filmmaker was "ahead of his time" is one of the most overused statements in all of film criticism, but here I have no reservations in saying that Lubitsch's films were truly as far ahead of their time, socially, as any films I've ever seen. He was openly and merrily conveying aspects of human socio-sexual tendencies that many individuals are sadly still struggling to come to grips with today, in the year 2015, almost a century later. His films have been accused of being sexist, and watching a movie like "The Smiling Lieutenant", we can see, to a certain extent, why that has been considered. There has certainly been much debate over the nature of Lubitsch's significant role in determining the treatment of female characters in Hollywood cinema. Consequently, some of his films may be more controversial now than they were in their own time. As open-minded and liberal as he was, Lubitsch was never even remotely concerned with being politically correct, and so his body of work remains a fascinating place to study the direction that cinema has taken.

"I Don't Want To Be a Man" is a feverish assault of controversiality and taboo-breaking fun. It's not a great film, but it's a solid film and a joy to watch, and it's unlike anything else from its time (or from any other time, really). I would think that almost anyone would find it worth its 45 minutes, and fans of Lubitsch especially will, I'm sure, be quite satisfied with it.

RATING: 6.00 out of 10 stars

You wouldn't think there was a war on, with pictures like this being produced. But in spite of, or perhaps because of the ongoing conflict in Europe, the mid-to-late teens saw a veritable revolution in screen comedy. Notably there was Charlie Chaplin in Hollywood, but outside the states the most important figure was surely director Ernst Lubitsch. What is astonishing is that due to the war the German film industry was isolated for foreign imports, and Lubitsch's approach flourished independently without influence from abroad.

This picture comes from a transitional point in Lubitsch's development, moving from his earliest character-based farces, which were not particularly special, to spectacular comedies where the gags were in the staging and arrangements. Essentially, Lubitsch realised that simple things can appear very funny if they are done simultaneously by lots of people. There are a couple of early examples of this here – the mass of serenading suitors, or the gaggle of love-struck tailors. These little moments are comic highpoints, but Lubitsch does not yet appear to have the confidence to spin them into a consistent style. Other than this, we have a series of gags based around Ossi Oswalda's dragged-up escapades. It's interesting to see this frank flirtation with cross-dressing and homosexuality (although not very surprising – remember this was the era of Magnus Hirschfield), but as comedy it soon gets a little tedious.

But leaving the comedy aside for the moment, there is evidence here for Lubitsch's emergence as a real craftsman of the cinema. The young director seems to have been really fascinated by the field of depth (an aspect of cinema often forgotten in an age of widescreen), panning shots and rapid editing. Most of the movement in I Don't Want to Be a Man is either towards or away from the camera, rather than across the frame. He often has a corridor leading off somewhere at the back of the shot, giving the space more definition (an honourable mention here goes to set designer Kurt Richter, whose slightly oddball creations were perfect for Lubitsch's world), and there are some very cunning uses of these. One example is when the governess meets the disguised Ossi at the bottom of the staircase. When Ossi exits, the camera pans a little to the right, suddenly framing the governess with the depth of the room behind her and subtly realigning our focus onto her reaction.

There is another factor that makes Lubitsch's German comedies distinctively different, and that is the presence of Ossi Oswalda herself. Although she was dubbed "the German Mary Pickford", Hollywood didn't really have anyone quite like her; a female star who could carry a comedy, and be the originator of the humour rather than just an element within a humorous film. Unfortunately for her, Lubitsch's pictures would get ever more elaborate in style, and would be less and less about the individual performances. If nothing else, I Don't Want to Be a Man shows Oswalda at her best.

Short (45mins) early silent movie from Ernst Lubitsch made a few years before he left Germany for Hollywood. Young (19) Ossi Oswalda plays a seemingly wayward young lady who is becoming quite a handful. Indeed, unlike UK and US films of the time we see this young lady drinking, playing cards flirting with older gentlemen and smoking furiously. A new guardian is employed to keep her in check but she finds if she dresses as a boy everyone is fooled and she can go off to the dance and flirt with that very same guardian. He is almost twice her age but the drunken evening is treated as a joke and they even kiss. Now, one he is twice her age and two, on the face of it these are two gentlemen kissing away. Ossi is not pretty in the conventional sense but we do consider that German gents like their ladies on the butch side so maybe this would have worked even more sensationally at the time. Curious, slightly worrying but a good start in my exploration of the early films of Mr Lubitsch.