alr

The Wildcat AKA The Mountain Cat
(Die Bergkatze)

Live Musical Accompaniment by Andrew Simpson
Screening on Film
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
With Pola Negri, Paul Heidemann, Victor Janson.
Germany, 1921, 35mm, black & white.
German intertitles with English subtitles.
Print source: Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung

Peace comes to an end in Lubitsch’s hilarious anti-militaristic satire when ladies’ man Lieutenant Alexis gets transferred to sleepy Fort Tossenstein. Instead of capturing the local bandit, he falls for the bandit’s daughter, “Mountain Cat.” Lubitsch took a short break with The Wildcat before making his next spectacle, The Love of the Pharaoh. Nonetheless, the film is spectacle enough with its bizarre sets and costumes, a fascinating blend of Expressionism and late Jugendstil, designed by Max Gronert and Ernst Stern, Max Reinhardt’s set designer. A financial failure in Germany, Lubitsch’s extravagant film was never distributed in the US.

Part of film series

Read more

That Certain Feeling... The Touch of Ernst Lubitsch

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

The Complete Stanley Kubrick

Read more

Community in Cinema

Read more

Crime Scenes as History. Five Korean Films

Read more

The Lady and the Typewriter

Read more

Sixties Shinoda

Read more

From the Collection – Bob Hoskins

Read more

Tarr / Krasznahorkai

Read more

Little Fugitive

Read more

The Spring is Over (Prague 1970)