If you’re only familiar with Lubitsch’s Hollywood movies his German silent movies will come as a major shock. They’re wild and crazy. Lubitsch invented his own genres as he went along. These movies obey none of the rules of conventional film-making that became established with the coming of the sound, but they don’t even obey any of the rules of silent film-making. Lubitsch just didn’t care about rules at this stage of his career. He was wildly experimental. I’d be tempted to describe the young Lubitsch as an avant-garde film-maker but that gives the impression of someone taking himself very seriously and Lubitsch wasn’t taking himself seriously at all. He was making fun movies. They were crazy, but they were fun.
The Oyster Princess is the story of Ossi (Ossi Oswalda), the daughter of American millionaire tycoon Quaker (Victor Janson). Quaker made his fortune from oysters. He’s the oyster king.
Ossi is throwing an epic tantrum. She has just heard that the daughter of America’s shoe-polish king has married a count. She now expects to marry a man at least equal to a count, preferably outranking a count. To calm her down her father promises to buy her a prince.
Fortunately in Europe in 1919 princes could be picked up quite inexpensively. There were plenty of noblemen who had lost their estates and fortunes in wars and revolutions. All of them would jump at the chance to marry a millionaire’s daughter.
Such a nobleman is Prince Nucki (Harry Liedtke). He is a real prince but he shares a squalid tenement apartment with his buddy Josef (Julius Falkenstein). Josef is in theory the prince’s aide-de-camp, and his only servant. Prince Nucki doesn’t have two pfennigs to rub together. What he has are debts. The marriage sounds like a fine idea.
Josef is certainly impressed by Quaker’s wealth. His mansion isn’t the size of a small palace, it’s the size of a large palace. Ossi doesn’t have a personal maid. She has two dozen personal maids.
The wedding doesn’t turn out quite as expected. Ossi gets married, but to whom?
This is not a bedroom farce and it’s not really a bawdy comedy. It pokes fun at millionaires and princes but it’s not really a satire. It’s certainly not a realist film but it’s not a fantasy. Everything is highly exaggerated but it doesn’t feel like surrealism.
It’s a bit of all those things blended into an intoxicating cocktail.
There has never been an actress quite like Ossi Oswalda. She made a series of films for Lubitsch and her performances are always bizarre and over-the-top but she’s quite different in each film. She had a knack of being bizarre and loveable at the same time. A strange actress but a fascinating one.
The Oyster Princess doesn’t have the overt and deliberate extreme artificiality or the extreme stylisation of other early Lubitsch movies, but you can sense that he’s starting to move in that direction.
And I haven’t even mentioned the fox-trot epidemic yet.
This movie is included in the Lubitsch in Berlin DVD boxed set from Eureka (which has now been released on Blu-Ray as well) and it’s also available on Blu-Ray from Kino Classics. My copy is from the DVD set and the transfer is quite OK and English subtitles are provided for the title cards.
It’s best to approach The Oyster Princess with no expectations at all in mind. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Highly recommended.
Sounds great! I'll try my library for a copy! Thanks!
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