Most of this movie is a run-of-the-mill musical comedy. Palace intrigue in a small fantasy country, two boys, two girls, guess how it ends...
But a few scenes struck me. Benjamin (Heinz Rühmann) and Manja (Maria Sazarina, age 20 then) at the buffet, overdosing their snacks with hot pepper (Paprika). Both incurring breathing problems, craving for drinks to relieve their throats, end up via a defective elevator in the wine cellar of the duke's castle, and selectively quench their thirsts, plus some pickled cucumbers. Much wine is consumed, and they fool around - Benjamin directing an orchestra of small wine barrels, Manja doing a really exquisite solo dance on the big wine barrels. Really worth seeing! Later, the other two heroes join them - Antonio (Lous Graveur) and duchess Stephanie (Camilla Horn), the two contenders to the crown. Some unseen foe locks the door, so they're all caught in the cellar.
Still later, Benjamin and Antonio (who really "is" a famous opera tenor) make music, and the girls listen from upstairs, and Manja does another solo dance (not as wild as the first), leading to her waltzing with Stephanie.
So far for my highlights, the rest is more comedy routine - Heinz Rühmann does his job being funny, Theo Lingen less so. But Maria Sazarina's dances beat all. She was Russian, acted in only six films 1934-40, and Wikipedia doesn't even list her. Watching more German movies from the 1930s, I'm always astonished by the actresses to discover there - not star-billed (my last were Hilde Weissner and Trude Berliner). What a talent pool there was, working in the movie industry to provide escapist emotional relief from Nazism and later WW2...
But a few scenes struck me. Benjamin (Heinz Rühmann) and Manja (Maria Sazarina, age 20 then) at the buffet, overdosing their snacks with hot pepper (Paprika). Both incurring breathing problems, craving for drinks to relieve their throats, end up via a defective elevator in the wine cellar of the duke's castle, and selectively quench their thirsts, plus some pickled cucumbers. Much wine is consumed, and they fool around - Benjamin directing an orchestra of small wine barrels, Manja doing a really exquisite solo dance on the big wine barrels. Really worth seeing! Later, the other two heroes join them - Antonio (Lous Graveur) and duchess Stephanie (Camilla Horn), the two contenders to the crown. Some unseen foe locks the door, so they're all caught in the cellar.
Still later, Benjamin and Antonio (who really "is" a famous opera tenor) make music, and the girls listen from upstairs, and Manja does another solo dance (not as wild as the first), leading to her waltzing with Stephanie.
So far for my highlights, the rest is more comedy routine - Heinz Rühmann does his job being funny, Theo Lingen less so. But Maria Sazarina's dances beat all. She was Russian, acted in only six films 1934-40, and Wikipedia doesn't even list her. Watching more German movies from the 1930s, I'm always astonished by the actresses to discover there - not star-billed (my last were Hilde Weissner and Trude Berliner). What a talent pool there was, working in the movie industry to provide escapist emotional relief from Nazism and later WW2...
