I Don’t Want to Be a Man

Second up in our Saturday night programme of silent films on top of Mount Drury is Ernst Lubitsch’s I Don’t Want to be a Man.

Short review from Pacific Film Archive:
I Don’t Want to Be a Man is a wonderful and eye-opening early comedy of sexual identity; in addition to showcasing Lubitsch’s witty direction of actors and predilection for risqué situations, it also shows how early on the director developed milieu as a comic and dramatic force. Tomboy Ossi Oswalda, who boldly indulges in drinking, smoking, playing poker, and similar unladylike activities, is placed in the care of a male guardian who vows to “cut her down to size.” Chafing under his reign, she decides to go all out and live like a man, in convincing drag; the two “men” smoke cigars, drink, and wind up a little too cozy in the back seat of a cab.

And for a more in-depth look at I Don’t Want to Be a Man, the Senses of Cinema website has a well researched review by Michael Koller.

Ossi in her new dinner suit, struggling to button the stiff collar

Ossi, on the right and dressed as a man, having just caught the eye of her stern

new guardian. But check out the background crowd in this ballroom scene.

This is no staid affair: it’s a riot of dancing, drinking and fun.