Synopsis
A pampered American oyster tycoon decides to buy a husband for his daughter, but things don’t go quite as planned. Along the way there are mishaps, misunderstandings and a foxtrot sequence that must be seen to be believed.
The Oyster Princess
1919 ‘Die Austernprinzessin’ Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
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Original Language
Spoken Language
Alternative Titles
My Lady Margarine, La princesa de las ostras, 牡蛎公主
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Just ridiculous. A straight dose of nonstop silliness and goofballery from Ernst Lubitsch, and it’s fantastic. Every element just hits.
Victor Janson has a remarkable mug and it’s used to great effect, an impenetrable gargoyle mask that’s a great counterweight to Ossi Oswalda’s maniacal whims of destruction. Julius Falkenstein is hilarious as a good-natured freeloading oaf, and his comedic energy with Harry Liedtke is top notch. The scene where the two men hastily transform their decrepit flat into a throne room is up there with a Laurel and Hardy short.
The amount of spectacle fits well too. The opulent set is populated with dozens of actors hurrying back and forth as the Oyster King’s improbable army of nose blowers and…
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chchchch
The golden age of music when every orchestra included a dude sawing through a wooden board as well as two guys slapping each other.
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7th Ernst Lubitsch (after Heaven Can Wait, Trouble in Paradise, One Hour with You, I Don't Want to Be a Man, The Merry Widow and The Doll)
Another little Lubitsch to cleanse the palette, this isn't the masterwork of The Doll, but it's got some enjoyable elements to it. The plot is a light macaroon of an affair about the spoilt daughter of an oyster tycoon who wants to marry a prince. Said individual is found for her, only for a mix-up to occur and our heroine winds up marrying his butler, in a riotous turn of events that involves the world's largest foxtrot. Lubitsch spends most of the film sending up the foolishness of the 1%, including a wonderful…
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The story is both whimsical and flimsy serving mostly as an excuse for ornate set pieces and elaborate comedic choreography involving dozens of servants and party goers. I was pretty sure I was going to give this three and a half stars, but the bonkers final moment got a big pop out of me.
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Part of my 5 Directors x 5 Unseen Films (12) challenge.
Writer-director Ernst Lubitsch called this film a "grotesque comedy in four acts." There is certainly an over-the-top, absurdist quality to the humor, so if he meant "bizarre," I'd have to agree with him. Ossi Oswalda stars as Oss, the spoiled daughter of the Oyster King of America, Mister Quaker (Victor Jansen). These people have more servants and maids than you can possibly count, and they live in a palatial estate that's so big, it requires a map to show guests around.
When Oss learns that the heir to the Shoe Cream fortune has married a baron, she throws a tantrum breaking every vase and piece of furniture in sight.…
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I don't know if groteskes lustspiel is an actual genre, or just a gag Ernst Lubitsch and Hanns Kräly made up for the opening credits, but if there are more of these, I want them.
This sort of ends up functioning as Lubitsch's PlayTime, with grandiose, gorgeous sets by Kurt Richter serving as large jungle gyms for the director to stage some ingenious gags in which the geometrical layout of human forms is as much the joke as the content. A spoiled American heiress goes through her morning toilette like a car on an assembly line; a large-scale fox trot spills around rooms in messy diagonal lines that keep snapping into shape with the rhythm of the dance. It's silly…
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So nimble and light on its feet that the whole thing seems like an impeccably choreographed dance – vaulting and jumping and landing every beat perfectly – showing off and sparkling; lavish, eccentric, and kaleidoscopic.
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Ossi Oswalda's heiress demands an aristocratic husband after a series of daughters of trade get theirs but ends up married to an impoverished princes' butler.
Not as funny or magical as the wildcat or the doll (although presumably better than the various silents from the same period that dont make the Lubitsch in berlin set) but it still has the very lovely oswalda who manages to have the same effortless presence as in her other lubitsch films that i've seen and some startlingly funny set pieces. It's amazing to think what the Germans were doing with comedies when the americans were laughing at people falling over.
The set pieces don't gel and combine to much more than the sum of the parts in the way some of the others do but it's still a very fun watch that is shot on a scale that puts hollywood comedies of the period to shame.
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This extremely sophisticated German silent is an often hilarious sendup of American wealth and the pointlessness of the aristocracy. Ernst Lubitsch was only five years into his career as a director, but he already had some thirty features and shorts to his credit. A dinner where the servants outnumber the guests ten to one is just one of the highlights in this testament to profligate waste.
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The Oyster Princess is Lubitsch realising the pearl on the inside of the oyster isn't as valuable as the shell, the flesh of the animal within, the whole kit and kaboodle. You take one element out, and the oyster ceases to be a whole functioning entity.
So Lubitsch here balances all his characteristic elements of mad humour and commentary on gender structure, and keeps the oyster whole.
Lubitsch carries on his symphony of subterfuge as male suitor Prince Nucki (who despite his name is completely broke) engages in a rather shoddy masquerade alongside his assistant Josef to convince all that enter his quarters that he is of wealth. This set up reminds me slightly of Capra's "Lady for a Day".…
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How Would Lubitsch Do It S1E08 - The Oyster Princess with Bram Ruiter
• Season One draws to a close in maximalist style as experimental filmmaker Bram Ruiter joins us for a particularly exuberant episode in which we discuss Lubitsch’s grand Ruritanian comic epic THE OYSTER PRINCESS. Our discussion is wide-ranging and a little giddy due to our excitement at discussing such a thrilling and hilarious mini-epic, so prepare for a slightly looser episode than usual! Lubitsch’s growth as an artist, Ossi Oswalda’s indomitability, and a self-indulgent digression about Berlin’s film museum are all on the table.
Immense thanks to everyone that made this season possible:
All of our guests: Lauren Faulker Rossi, Will Ross, Dara Jaffe, Matt Severson, Peter…