★★★
Wildcat tends more to the broad, slapstick side of comedy than some of Lubitsch’s other works from this time, but there are some sly asides of understated humor and some plot devices that are typical of what I expect from Lubitsch. It’s got a lot of irony that’s memorable, and you’d have to put the film in the grand old tradition of anti-military films.
You get the broad side of Wildcat’s humor in the opening scenes. There are some silly idiosyncrasies among the troops who are asleep and obvious stunts when the bugler sounds reveille. It's all pretty flat. When the Kommandant comes in, everyone quickly becomes soldierly, but as soon as he leaves, they all jump right back in bed. This is vaudeville -- not even clever vaudeville -- and it’s off-putting so early in the film. The large gestures continue throughout, but they get a little funnier. As lady’s man Leutnant Alexis leaves for his new post, there is a crowd of hundreds of women to say good-bye at the ceremony, and the crowd cries and blows its nose in sync as part of the departure. The army can’t control the ensuing women's riot as the hundreds of women overwhelm military security. And in the vast sections of crowd crying and cheering as the Leutnant passes, there’s a huge section for his offspring. That little touch is broad but at least witty. In another scene, Rischka sets out in the snow across the mountains in despair of marrying the Leutnant while the Leutnant himself, in despair over his forced marriage, decides to jump into the snow and slide down the side of the mountain. They run into each other. That coincidence is so unlikely that it’s just funny. Such wit cushions the time we spend on underwear jokes.
All the humor in Wildcat isn’t so clearly in-your-face; there are very funny, ironic touches throughout the film that you have to pay attention to or miss. I hardly noticed, for example, that when the army detail goes punish the bandits, the military band is at least double the size of the troop of soldiers. The soldiers fight with snowballs and stumble on ice, but in all that broad comedy, there’s the understate wit of the respective group numbers, too. The art direction also brings a level of subtle irony to the film. In the fort, every window has an oversized canon wedged into it (ringed in white trim), and the interiors are heavy, massive curves used as furniture. A sad Leutnant rocks on one of these while seeking consolation in the bottle, looking for all the world like a kid on a rocking horse. Even the bandits’ environment has cute décor touches – everything bandit has a childlike skull-and-crossbones on it. The actors, too, add many small comic asides to their performances. When Pola Negri’s barbarian leader Rischka is splashing toilet water on herself in the fortress raid, she accidently dumps some down the front of her blouse and goes through a rapid series of facial changes that’s as funny as it can be. And easy to miss. The many subtle touches here give Wildcat a nuance that the Three Stooges never get.
One last thing I like in this film is the character of Rischka. She is the wildcat, and she’s a force of nature. She runs the bandit band, bossing and terrorizing all its members. She scares everyone into submission when they start to beat up their chief, who is her father, and she leads the defense against the military incursion, telling her father to fix the coffee while she does so. And he brings her coffee to her in the field. She’s the one who dumps her fellow drunk raiders onto a sled when they leave the fortress, too. She is quite a powerful female figure.
After all this Lubitsch, I’m also noticing that he uses love triangles to propel his plot. Here, you have Rischka—Leutnant—Kommandant’s daughter as well as Rischka—Leutnant—Bandit. A lot of the action is centered on these triangles, just as it is in other films like Sumurun, Anna Bolyn and The Oyster Princess. It’s a structure I’ll have to look for in further Lubitsch.
Wildcat has many interesting sides, and I have to say I enjoyed watching it. I wish it had had more wit and less vaudeville, but it’s nuances can make it well worth the time.
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