The Oyster Princess (and Meyer From Berlin)

Visually inventive, sexually playful, and speeding at a manic pace, The Oyster Princess represents the best of the madcap comedies made by Ernst Lubitsch prior to his arrival in Hollywood. Employing the same fairy-tale expressionism that distinguishes The Doll (1919) and The Wildcat (1921), it follows the efforts of a wealthy American tycoon (Victor Janson) to marry off his free-spirited daughter (Ossi Oswalda) to a titled prince (Harry Liedtke). But in the Lubitsch universe, things never quite go according to plan. This is also true of Lubitsch’s 1919 comedy Meyer from Berlin, in which the director stars as an unhappily married urbanite who escapes to the Alps of Tyrol in search of physical and sexual adventure.