RetroClips

Lubitsch later pointed to this film as the birth of what critics would call the Lubitsch touch, his knack for turning a sight gag into social satire. He was a German director who had never been to America, yet built this farce entirely around mocking American nouveau-riche excess, with a heroine whose father is introduced as the Cotton King and then, a title card later, corrected to the Potash King. The film's real showpiece is a later ensemble dance number so wild it required its own choreographer, but this staircase run captures the same manic, joyful energy in miniature.