The misadventures of an effete young man who must get married in order to inherit a fortune. He opts to purchase a remarkably lifelike doll and marry it instead, not realizing that the doll is actually the dollmaker’s flesh-and-blood daughter in disguise.
Direction
Lubitsch's 'touch' already fully formed—wit without intertitles.
Production
Glorious expressionist sets that look like storybook fever dreams.
Acting
Ossi Oswalda's mechanical doll walk is pure comedic genius.
Director
Ernst Lubitsch
Ossi Oswalda
Ossi, the Dollmaker’s Daughter / The Doll
Victor Janson
Hilarius, the Dollmaker
Hermann Thimig
Lancelot, the Baron’s Nephew
Marga Köhler
Frau Hilarius, The Dollmaker’s Wife
Gerhard Ritterband
The Apprentice
Jakob Tiedtke
The Prior
Josefine Dora
Lancelot's Nanny
Paul Morgan
Hippolyt, the Baron's Servant
Ernst Lubitsch
Director in Prologue (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Lubitsch's first full-on comedy after dramas; he reportedly threw out half the script to improvise on set.
Based on an Offenbach opera but Lubitsch ditched the music, keeping only the misogyny-as-farce energy.
DE
