Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919)

Director:

F. Richard Jones

Writer:

Mack Sennett (story)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Behind enemy lines, Captain Bob White disguises himself as a woman in order to fool members of the German High Command, including the Kaiser himself. |

Plot Keywords:

Kaiser | Aviation | Paul Von Hindenburg | Hoax | City Name In Title

Cast

Bothwell Browne	...	Captain Bob White
Ford Sterling	...	The Kaiser
Malcolm St. Clair	...	The Crown Prince (as Mal St. Clair)
Bert Roach	...	Von Hindenburg
Ben Turpin	...	A Guardsman
Charles Murray	...	An Irish Soldier (as Charlie Murray)
Marie Prevost	...	A Belgian Girl
Eva Thatcher	...	The Kaiserin
Joseph Belmont	...	Von Tirpitz (as Baldy Belmont)
Chester Conklin	...	Officer of Death's Head Hussars
Phyllis Haver	...	Undetermined Role
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Juanita Hansen

Also Known As:

The Kaiser's Last Squeal (USA) (alternative title)

Runtime:

58 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

Mack Sennett Comedies

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Moving Picture Boys in the Great War (1975)

Mack Sennett's bizarre salute to our boys Over There

It was eighty-five years ago today that the signing of the Armistice brought the Great War to an end. The most brutal conflict in human history up to that time wiped out an entire generation for reasons which, even today, no one seems able to lucidly explain. Although that tragedy has been been overshadowed by the even more devastating Second World War, it's surprising that where popular culture is concerned World War I doesn't seem to loom so large anymore. Perhaps part of the reason is that we write our popular history with images now, and most WWI movies-- certainly those made while the war was still taking place --are museum pieces viewed nowadays primarily by film buffs. Several great silent features, such as King Vidor's THE BIG PARADE (1925), were produced a few years after the war once studio techniques had been refined somewhat but while the memories were still raw. The talkie era brought several more worthwhile WWI films, but in later years, especially after the atrocities of the Second World War made those of the first look almost quaint, Stanley Kubrick's PATHS OF GLORY was one of the few films to return to the earlier conflict with fresh insight into the madness and inhumanity of war as it was expressed the European conflict of 1914-1918.

So where does comedy producer Mack Sennett and his band of grotesques fit into all this? It seems that during the Great War he and his crew crafted an artifact that can still be viewed today, one that stands as a unique expression of the attitudes of its time and, believe me, to call it "unique" is an understatement.

Towards the end of the fighting in 1918 Sennett put the top names in his organization into a farcical effort entitled YANKEE DOODLE IN BERLIN, a feature-length film. It was held back for release until early 1919, after the fighting had ended, perhaps in hopes that once the dust had settled a war-weary public might be willing to laugh at low comedy with a military theme. Charlie Chaplin had daringly released his own Army comedy SHOULDER ARMS during the war's final weeks, and it was enthusiastically embraced by the public. Sennett's production was modestly successful but not a smash hit like Chaplin's, and when we compare the two today it's easy to see why. Chaplin's film takes us along for the day-to-day experiences of a common foot soldier, the Charlie everyone loved, while Sennett's more fragmented effort has no comparable lead player, and focuses largely on the buffoonish behavior of the grossly caricatured German High Command. Chaplin's routines, such as Charlie's masquerade as a tree, are imaginative and exquisitely timed, while Sennett's troupe relies on obvious and sloppily performed crudities: the Kaiser is shot in the butt by his own troops, his fat wife guzzles beer, an Irish soldier blows his nose in a German flag, etc. Low comedy alternates with blunt appeals to knee-jerk nationalism. Audiences probably roared their approval of these gags when the film was new, but today these shallow propaganda devices feel heavy-handed, coarse, and, considering the human toll involved, pathetic.

By any objective standard YANKEE DOODLE IN BERLIN is a poor film. Even silent comedy buffs might be dismayed by its ugly political content, not to mention its absence of any genuinely funny material, but there is a key plot element so strikingly bizarre that some may nonetheless wish to take a look anyhow: the hero of the story, American Captain Bob White, is played by a then-famous female impersonator named Bothwell Browne, who spends most of his time on screen in drag. Browne, remembered by theater historians as the only serious rival to Julian Eltinge, had a more lithe figure and a sexier act than his rival, and was in fact best known for a Salome Dance. In this, apparently his only film appearance, Browne appears briefly in uniform at the beginning (ironically he looks quite fey in a mustache, rather like Lucille Ball disguised as a cowboy) but soon afterward volunteers for a dangerous mission in which he is forced to don ladies' clothing. That, at any rate, is what the title cards keep telling us.

Our hero Bob is determined to secure war plans from the Kaiser himself (played by Ford Sterling in his usual strenuous fashion), and it seems the only way to accomplish this is for Bob to get behind enemy lines and then pass himself off as an attractive woman of mystery. The title card reads: "Recollections of College Plays," so apparently Bob has some experience playing Mata Hara types. Once he's in Germany, Bob must wrangle himself an invitation to the Palace, do his Salome Dance for the assembled drooling officers, and then grab the plans during an assignation --from the Kaiser's very boudoir if necessary. But just in case we're wondering if our hero is, you know, enjoying this a little too much, we're reminded that "Bob knew this was the only way to promote the success of his errand." Well, hey, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do . . .

How very odd this is. I've encountered some strange movies in my time, but this one is in a special category. At the height of the worldwide cataclysm, while Chaplin was making a hero out of an ordinary foot-soldier, his former employer Mack Sennett chose to give audiences a cross-dressing officer who shakes a mean shimmy. Once seen, you may find it difficult to forget the image of Captain Bob White, bereft of his wig but still wearing his evening gown and pearls, heroically pulling the German flag down from the roof of the Palace. If it's great cinema you want, go with Chaplin or Vidor or Kubrick, but if you're interested in WWI-era Polymorphic Perversity, it's Sennett and YANKEE DOODLE IN BERLIN all the way.