Das Liebes-ABC

Asta Nielsen has been told she is engaged by her father. She looks forward to meeting him, but on discovering it is Ludwig Trautmann, discomfited by the arrangement and wearing a bow tie, she is disappointed. He does not live up to his ideal of how a real man should behave. She inveigles him into a night on the town, with her dressed as a man also, to instruct him in the niceties of masculinity.

My Youtube feed has been turning up a lot of relationship videos, with feminists complaining that there are no real men any more, and others with titles like "You should be a real man, like my brother" -- which causes me to think about various annoying and disgusting things. Apparently the complaint is not new. While Miss Nielsen gives a good performance, I don't think much of the humor nor the situations in this gender-swap comedy.

Asta Nielsen was without doubt the finest actress of the Silent Era. She had the ability to lift any film to a higher level. Here, Asta Nielsen spends some of the time dressed as a man and passing herself off as one.

I won't give away the plot, I'll just say that it is a romantic comedy. Asta once again commands attention as she always does in all her films. Her vivacious performances are the best thing in any of her films. Well worth a look.