The Wildcat

Before director Ernst Lubitsch left Germany to ply his famous ‘Touch’ in Hollywood, he made a series of comedies that gave hints at what was to come. The Wildcat is his last German comedy and his most riotously zany. Subtitled ‘A Grotesque in Four Acts,’ Wildcat makes use of extravagant set design and eccentric frame shapes that lend a surrealistic edge to its antic energy. Pola Negri’s Rischka leads a gang of mountain bandits who ambush Lieutenant Alexis (Paul Heidemann) on his way to the local fortress, leaving him pant-less (and smitten) on the ice. Film writer John Gillett called the film “both an anti-militarist satire and a wonderful fairy tale.”