January 8: I Don't Want to Be a Man/Ich möchte kein Mann sein (1918 -- Ernst Lubitsch)

★★★★

This movie is charming; Lubitsch’s touch is all over it.

While Princess goes for the big, obvious and ham-handed, I Don’t Want to Be a Man has scene-after-scene of cute subversions or affectionate critiques.  The treatment of the governess comes to mind as a small example of this affection.  After she squashes Ossi’s smoking, the governess picks up the cigarette herself to give it a try, and to her delight, discovers she likes it.  Later, the somewhat unattractive older woman trembles with delight after the dashing, new guardian kisses her hand, and the wiggle in her walk humanizes her with affirmative satire.  This is the mood that infuses the entire movie and makes it so light.

Ossie here reminds me of Ossie in Princess, too.  Early in this film, she pouts; fusses with her father, governess and guardian; and throws things about in her room.  There’s a clear continuity in the two.  But when she dons her male apparel, things change for her.  She’s soon made to give way on the subway and bear up when her toe is stepped on.  She’s then bounced around trying to get to the coat check and falls ill smoking a cigar.  It’s these later experiences that give her a humanity – a sympathy – that the Oyster Princess never has.  It’s funny watching this woman trying to be what she imagines a man to be, but we feel for her unexpected difficulties, too, and sympathize with her in a way we don't for the princess in the other film.

The most fun in this movie is the multiple transgressions that Lubitsch piles up as soon as Ossie begins her cross-dressing odyssey.  She looks like a young, pampered boy, and the image of her in a tux is transgressive on its own.  Many of her actions violate social standards in a comic way, as when the ladies joke about this dandy powdering his nose.  Even scenes when she is dancing with the women are comically breaking barriers as the women take the lead from the “boy” and sling him around.  Some of the best humor in the film comes from scenes like the one with Ossie trying to draw her guardian’s girlfriend away.  When the girlfriend responds to Ossie, it’s an ironic revenge but one we don't typically see on film between two women.  And a transgressive one because we're actually seeing a woman responding to another woman.  Scenes like this one are what Lubitsch’s comedy is about when he’s at his best.

 

Two scenes in this film still made me squirm, over 90 years after it was made.  When the sick Ossie heads to the restroom at the club, I felt the tension increase as I waited for her to choose a restroom.  As she headed toward the women’s, I tensed up in anticipation about  how the women in the restroom would react.  I relaxed as she changed her mind, but I redoubled my anticipation as she headed toward the men’s.  I could hardly imagine how that would go and was honestly relieved when she changed her mind there, too.  Lubitsch led me 100% of the way through that ebb and flow of anticipation.  


The pinnacle of transgression in the film, though, is when the guardian kisses the Ossie/boy, and I’m still not exactly sure what that was about.  I don’t know if such affection was accepted at the time, or if the guardian is simply a profoundly bisexual man. All of those questions wrapped up with the added dimension of the cross-dressing by Ossie.  With all these levels already at play, the urbane Lubitsch ends the film with the guardian referring back to the kiss in as cool and matter-of-fact manner as possible.  That whole episode is masterful, transgressive  comedy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this little film, even with the problems of continuity and film quality.  What an engaging, fun tour.