The Doll

This comedy from the hands of Ernst Lubitsch in 1919 is a joyride through a number of imaginative sets and situations. Even though its artificiality if ever apparent, the movie makes it work by playing with the costumes and sets, to create a whimsical world where everything can happen.

Like other Lubitsch films the plot of this is build upon similar themes such as facade and identity. Although not my favourite of Lubitsch's films it hold a place in the top five. This movie is assured to put a smile on your face the whole way through, driven by Lubitsch's at times expressive directing.

All cinema is artificial, and there is no getting away from this no matter how much of a realist you try to be. And while authenticity and naturalistic performances are a necessity for drama, there are some types of picture in which a deliberate flaunting of artificiality is not only acceptable, it is a positive benefit.

By this point in his career, German comedy director Ernst Lubitsch had developed a unique brand of slapstick, the hallmark of which was absurdity and exaggeration. In Lubitsch's world, almost anything can happen, and often does. The stories he dreamed up with his regular collaborator Hanns Kraly were always whimsical and fairy tale-ish, but the Doll is perhaps their most fantastical of all. In it we have a lifelike mechanical doll, and a flesh-and-blood woman pretending to be the doll. Rather than go overboard trying to make this look as convincing as possible, Lubitsch takes things the other way, and stages the whole thing in a phoney and theatrical land, complete with wooden sets, painted backdrops and pantomime horses. In such a setting, the premise of the picture becomes workable.

Aside from this, the comic stylings of the early Lubitsch farces were becoming increasingly refined. As usual there are lots of jokes based around ridiculous numbers of people doing the same thing in unison, or the expressions of characters in reaction. Here Lubitsch shows the confidence to have many of these gags play out in long, unbroken takes, with hilarious results, such as the long shot of Lancelot being chased round the town by a huge gang of women, followed by his elderly uncle, followed by a servant with the uncle's medication. Often the careful placement of actors means our attention is drawn to the right spot at the right time, as oppose to overdoing a gag with a jolting cut. An example of this is the uncle's servant's very funny reaction to Lancelot's suggestion that the uncle get married. Lubitsch has the servant to one side of the screen, where it seems natural for him to be, but closest to the camera so his face is clear and we instantly notice when his expression begins to change.

As the eponymous doll, we have here another triumphant performance from Ossi Oswalda. While individual actors were used almost like cogs in Lubitsch's machine, there is no denying that Oswalda was surely a great comedienne in her own right. Here she shows impeccable control and timing, as she is forced to instantaneously snap in and out of being herself and acting as the doll. She also has a lot of fun pulling faces in this one. Honourable mentions go to Hermann Thimig, who is clownish enough to make a lead man in this silly setting, and Gerhard Ritterband, who despite being a youngster manages to steal every scene he is in. It's a shame these two did not have more distinguished screen careers, but of course it's worth bearing in mind that many of these players were more successful on the stage.

Speaking of which, it's possible that some viewers might be put off by the theatrical artifice of this picture. There is a rather depressingly naïve school of thought among some cineastes that film is film and theatre is theatre, and for film to make itself like theatre is to somehow straitjacket itself. But as we have seen, Lubitsch's creation of a self-confessed unreal world has given him greater freedom in staging his bizarre humour. Another German director, Fritz Lang, used a similar approach in his films of the 20s and early 30s albeit for a very different effect, whereby he created macabre and stylised art deco cities in which all kinds of comic-book adventures could take place. And in the Doll, when we see characters sleepwalking over rooftops or being carried away by a bunch of helium balloons, it is reminds me more than anything of the world of cartoons, in which the only limitation is the skills and imagination of the animators. With pictures like this, Lubitsch was really setting his genius free.

Because the Baron of Chanterelle wants to preserve his family line, he forces his timid nephew Lancelot to choose one of the village maidens to wed. Lancelot flees to a monastery to escape the forty eager maidens. When the gluttonous monks discover that the Baron is offering a large sum for the marriage, they suggest Lancelot marry a mechanical doll instead.

I absolutely love how this was put on as a mixture between a play and a film. Some of the sets (such as inside the castle) seem quite elaborate, while other things (the trees and horses) smack of a high school production. But not in a bad way -- there is a certain charm to how this story unfolded. Add to that the wild hair and outfit of the puppet master (a precursor to Willy Wonda) and you have a great looking film.

Something could be said about the interaction between people and robots, and at what point are robots so lifelike that the line between human and non-human is all too fuzzy. But this is a light-hearted film and I will not get too serious here.

People speak of the Lubitsch Touch first showing up in THE OYSTER PRINCESS, but that movie always struck me me as a a good romantic comedy, dimmed by changes in fashion, creaking a bit in age.

But this movie is the real thing: a silly story told with much flair and constant surprises. It begins with Lubitsch showing you a model of the set, like Penn and Teller showing you how they do the cup-and-ball trick, followed by a show that dazzles you: pantomime horses, venal monks and a little bit of E.T.A. Hoffman all fall under the thrall of Lubitsch and all of them, and the audience too, end up with smiles on their faces.

This movie is too good to more than hint at its wonders. If you have never seen a silent feature, see this one.

The opening shot of Ernst Lubitsch's The Doll announces wordlessly that it's going to be...different. A man, Lubitsch himself, comes out and sets up a house and yard with paper on a table, which we then zoom in on and two characters exit the house to start the story. What follows is an unrealistic tale of love and fantasy that delights and entertains while providing what seems to be the earliest form of the Lubitsch Touch. This isn't the tale of high society and wit that Lubitsch became famous for, but it's really close to it.

The Baron of Chanterelle (Max Kronert) is frustrated because he has only one heir, his nephew Lancelot (Hermann Thimig), and Lancelot has seemingly no interest in women or extending the family line. He dictates that Lancelot must marry, and he decrees it to the whole kingdom, sending all forty eligible maidens into a Benny Hill-esque chase for Lancelot around the storybook looking country as the Baron chases behind, taking spoonfuls of medicine from his assistant as he goes. It's amusing and delightful, and it ends with Lancelot finding refuge in the local abbey, led by the abbot (Jakob Tiedtke), where the friars all sit around, bemoan their near ruinous state as they eat large portions of pork and bread. Lancelot begs them to grant him a safe space from his uncle's grasp, and they let him in.

It's when the Baron puts an ad in the kingdom's newspaper begging Lancelot to come back with a promise of several hundred thousand kroner as a dowry that the abbot reads, giving him a great idea. He'll connect Lancelot with the renowned dollmaker Hilarius (Victor Janson), and Lancelot can bring a female doll with him to the Baron to trick him into thinking that Lancelot has married. He'll be able to take the dowry and give it to the abbey so they'll never run out of pork knuckles! Nothing about this is terribly deep, and it's sometimes a bit too thin (why does Lancelot agree to give all the money to the abbey? I dunno). However, the meat of the film is the titular doll.

Hilarius has created his newest doll and modeled it after his daughter Ossi (Ossi Oswalda, in a dual role). When Hilarius' apprentice (Gerhard Ritterband) accidentally breaks the arm of the doll, Ossi decides to protect him (why? Unclear) by pretending to be the doll just as Lancelot shows up to pick a doll for his ruse. The film becomes an outright farce with Ossi pretending to be the doll with Lancelot dragging her around as she maintains the ruse. Why she does it is unclear, but the comic effect is sustained surprisingly well through the series of events. She keeps her arms up and maintains a static smile while obviously getting a kick out of the whole thing (her most likely motivation: it simply entertains her). She keeps it up through the wedding ball where she has to balance her need to maintain the fiction for Lancelot while happily dropping it here and there when Lancelot isn't looking to grab some food or drink or just dance with the Baron. Lancelot's innocent inability to grasp the situation (married to the storybook method of the film's telling) is the source of a lot of the comedy in the story, and that Lubitsch leaned so heavily into the storybook visual motifs throughout shows that he knew there needed to be a level of artifice around the events to give it the kind of narrative space necessary to sell the events to the audience.

This farce of intentionally mistaken identities along with the high society, European setting is what makes it feel more in line with the later perception of Lubitsch and his work, but that outright storybook visual aesthetic and lack of wit in the dialogue (there's not none, but it's extremely limited by the silent film format, relegating the little wit it can display in dialogue to intertitles) makes it feel like a proto-form of what Lubitsch would later become known for.

The resolution of the plot threads lead the pair back to the abbey after the successful conning of the Baron (since Ossi is a real person and not a doll, was it really a conning?), and Ossi's identity gets fully revealed, leading to the two falling in love. Why? It's thin stuff, but it's amusing. However, the depth of character required isn't quite captured. And yet, this isn't Carmen, this is The Doll. It's a farce and a comedy, and there's enough work done to make the comedy work and the narrative flow, just not enough to make the heart sing by the end.

I really appreciate the deep weirdness of the film, offset by the farcical aspects. Whenever I see a female doll like this in a film, I automatically think of the dehumanizing look at the titular character in Fellini's Casanova. It's nice to see this detail played more lightly, though I imagine this was an influence on Fellini later.

This is something of a nice gem in Lubitsch's early career. It's light and frothy farce that could have benefited from a stronger approach to its characters to establish them and their motives. However, what drives the film is its light comic sensibilities which, when combined with the intentional storybook visual aesthetic, creates a delightful little trifle of a film that points to where Lubitsch was going to go later.