L'ussaro nero

This turns out to be a bland historical romance with a few songs but no duel, no ball and no battle - disappointing in the line of (second billed under Christians) Veidt's work.

Disbanded by Napoleon, Conrad's black Hussars, with their skull and cross bones caps, are still given the mission of rescuing the princess, who the Emperor is trying to marry off with Polish nobleman Chmara, and take her back to their duke, Lamprecht regular Goetzke, who just manages to beat the end title onto the screen. Lots of would be comic impersonations.

The film is handsomely mounted on a small scale by the great Rohrig & Herlth team and was probably nicely filmed by Franz Planer, even if the U-Tube copy is fuzzy and wobbles as if it was copied off a projection on a bed sheet.

Captain Conrad Veidt and his faithful companion, Lieutenant Wolf Albach-Retty, officers of the Black Hussars, are on a secret mission to rescue the local Princess from the French forces -- this is Napoleonic era stuff -- and return her to her proper fiancee, Count Bernhard Goetzke. While the French forces are looking for them, they hide out at a local inn and make love to the innkeeper's nieces. They don't realize that the one Veidt has set his cap at is the princess they seek: Mady Christians. The French arrive and drive them out, so they set out to where the French governor is keeping Princess Mady so she can be married to a Polish prince of Napoleon's choice. Along the way, they decide that Veidt will impersonate the prince.

It's a little bit of this and that: some roguish behavior, Otto Wallburg in a Herman-Bing role as the the French governor, several songs, Conrad Veidt at his most roguish and dashing best, and Mady Christians at her loveliest. It's a lot of fun, if nothing out of the ordinary, with its mixture of THE CAPTAIN FROM KOPENICK and THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, it's all clearly a well calculated bit of nonsense. While parts of it haven't aged well -- particularly the operetta songs -- it still has its charms, particularly the leads.