Seine Frau, die Unbekannte

Willy Fritsch is an artist who has gone blind. Through a subplot that is never concluded, he winds up thinking Lil Dagover is another woman he has had a mysterious encounter with. They fall in love and wed, and have a daughter. When Fritsch goes to see a doctor to have his sight restored, he tells her he will know her instantly when he sees her. He doesn't, and Mss Dagover runs away with the baby. When Willy kidnaps the baby, through connivance with his mother and the entire household staff, Miss Dagover presents herself as the baby's nurse, and they wind up falling in love again.

This nonsensical piffle was conceived by Benjamin Christensen as a purely commercial proposition, meant to restore his reputation after the commercial failure of Häxan. While these two beautiful people torment each other over trifles, and Fritsch is unable to recognize his own wife by scent and touch after she runs away in a snit, and his loving mother and the staff he pays conspire against him... well, Christiansen may have been a great film maker, but his idea of an enjoyable commercial movie isn't mine.

There's some great art direction by Hans Jacoby, but I rarely go to the movies to look at furniture.