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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.

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