Je ne voudrais pas être un homme

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.

A tomboy disguises herself as one of the boys, but finds that life as a man has its own difficulties.

First of all, was this film made in 1918 or 1920? IMDb says 1918 and the Kino DVD says 1920. I tend to think Kino should be more knowledgeable on this particular title, but I find it hard to doubt IMDb... not that it makes a big difference, but to put it in context of the formative years of cinema, it seems that a more precise date would help.

But anyway, this is quite the ground-breaker, having a woman dress as a man and live as one for a day. Countless films have used this formula since... was this the first? Always an interesting concept, because it seems that most women could not pass as men (or most men as women)... and yet, here, despite a feminine touch there was a generally manly appearance presented.

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.

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.

Four of the earliest romantic comedies from Ernest Lubitsch that are available, "The Merry Jail" (1917), "The Oyster Princess", "The Doll" (both 1919) and this film, "I Don't Want to Be a Man", all base much of their humor around situations of mistaken identity. A character masquerades as someone else and absurdity and amusement ensue; in this case, our tomboy protagonist dresses and pretends to be a man for a day of drinking. Lengthy analysis could and probably has been written about the homosexual overtones of the scenes of the male lead repeatedly kissing and touching a woman he believes to be and appears to be a man.

Lubitsch's style was already fairly polished by this time, which is especially evident in the nice 35mm transfers of these films available on home video. The up and down camera movements for seasickness stand out as the most gimmicky technique. What I especially appreciate here, however, is some good comedic visual timing with amusing title cards. For example, in one scene, an intertitle states, "The poor child will be so miserable", which is followed by a shot of the "poor child" dancing zestfully. Overall, even if these early comedies by Lubitsch aren't exceptionally funny and their humor often broad, they're short and well paced; generally, I find them more enjoyable than his ponderous, early dramatic, costume spectacles with Pola Negri.