The Wildcat

Something like the fantastical opening imagined by Ernst Lubitsch (the original inter-titles are lost), with the fictional location and the immediate broad spoof of the popular matte-iris technique, Viktor Janson introduced as commander of a plenty-absurd looking fortress, from The Wildcat, or Die Bergkatze, 1921, starring Pola Negri.

Just introduced as the leader of an outlaw band on some fictional Alpine frontier, Wilhelm Diegelmann is being set upon by his own charges so he summons his daughter Rischka (Pola Negri, the title character, her first scene) who cracks heads as needed then notices Paul Heidemann as Alexis, the just-transferred army Lothario, on the move, in Ernst Lubitsch’s The Wildcat, 1921.

Introduction of the heartthrob officer Alexis (Paul Heidemann) being banished to a remote frontier outpost in Ernst Lubitsch’s fantasy winterland, loaded with more matte technique and design gags, still before the introduction of Pola Negri, the title character, in the outlandish German silent comedy The Wildcat, 1921.

Thinking she’s made a killing by robbing a dandified military officer of his clothes, Rischka (Pola Negri), daughter of the Alpine bandit chieftan, is baffled by seeing her first photograph, then smitten, then berated by her dad (Wilhelm Diegelmann) for not taking his underwear as well, in Ernst Lubitsch’s absurd comedy The Wildcat, 1921.