Ich möchte kein Mann sein (1918)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch

Film Review

The German director Ernst Lubitsch was just 26 when he made his most outrageous film in 1918, Ich möchte kein Mann sein (a.k.a. I Don't Want to Be a Man), an unbridled satirical comedy that is one of cinema's earliest and most entertaining cross-dressing farces.  Prior to this, Lubitsch had made around twenty shorts but it wasn't until his next film, Die Augen der Mumie Ma (1918), that he managed to get himself noticed.   Perfectly cast as the scurrilous tomboy wishing she were a man (until she sees the downsides) is Ossi Oswalda, the onetime dancer who appeared in several of Lubitsch's early films, most notably Die Austernprinzessin (The Oyster Princess) and Die Puppe (The Doll) (1919).  Ossi's popularity and exposure earned her the nickname of the German Mary Pickford and she is glorious in this slapstick-laden humour fest.

That famous Lubitsch touch, which would become so evident during the director's prolific Hollywood years (in such films as his riotous Greta Garbo vehicle Ninotchka), is very much in evidence in this dazzling silent film, along with a distinctive anti-authoritarian streak.  Even today, Ich möchte kein Mann appears daringly risqué - not because a woman should dare to dress and act as a man, but because of its overt homosexual allusions, which would become virtually taboo a generation later.  Within a few years of making this film, Ernst Lubitsch would rapidly become one of Germany's leading filmmakers, garnering an international reputation with his grand historical dramas, including Madame Du Barry (1919) and Anna Boleyn (1920).  After this astonishing start to his career, his move to Hollywood in 1922 seems almost inevitable.

Film Synopsis

Young Ossi rebels against her authoritarian uncle by smoking, drinking and playing cards.  If only she were a man she would be free to do all the things she enjoys!  She gets her opportunity when her uncle goes away on a business trip.  She dresses herself up as a man and goes off to a ball for an evening of unfettered masculine debauchery.  Ossi soon discovers that there is a downside to being a man.  Women shamelessly throw themselves at her feet, believing that she really is of the male sex.  Then she runs into Dr Kersten, the man who is supposedly charged with watching over her in her uncle's absence.  Kersten invites Ossi to get drunk with him and, mistaking her for a pretty young man, starts to flirt with her.  At this point, Ossi begins to realise how lucky she is not to be a man...