Die vom Rummelplatz

This film features Anny Ondra in her first sound continental film, which was a real sensation. However, the Big Four worked with a certain amount of confidence, casting all the familiar faces from their silent films around Anny, such as the great Sig Arno or Margarete Kupfer, and there was also room for Josef Rovenský in a small role. Each shot is a proper show and Anny gives us four flawless performances, each in a different vein. The opening shot with the crumbling piano is a match for any Marx Brothers film. Anny becomes the proclaimed Micky Mouse right after, and up her sleeve, she still has a small theater for her private company and a final puppet show where she is the main star in a magnificent ballet tutu. This is a brilliant film that set the bar very high not only for other Ondra-Lamač productions (this was their first feature film for the new Berlin-based brand), but also managed to make fun of the current hit of the same season, The Blue Angel. It’s inexhaustibly perfect. For example, the evolution of the gag with the dog in the train compartment continues here from Saxophone Suzi and is not lost in Honeymoon. (14.02.2009)