So ein Mädel vergisst man nicht can be thought of as a backstage musical that treats the whole world as backstage. We’re all actors, all thetime, and music is everywhere. Melodies seem to be buzzing through the air, available to anyone in the right state of mind. Willi Forst alwaysis, and he is also an actor who can transform any space into a stage. Fritz Kortner, one of the defining personalities of the German languagetheatre scene of the 1920s, makes the most of his star’s talent in an intricately constructed romantic comedy that believes in the truth of artifice. Forst plays Paul Hartwig, a wannabe actor who is reduced to selling books in the cold streets of Berlin together with his buddy Max (Oskar Sima). While pursuing his big break, he meets Lisa Brandes (Dolly Haas), another victim of the global financial crisis who has justlearned a new trick: cheating horny old men out of their money by selling promises she does not intend to keep. Dedicated theatre man Paul decides to win her over by putting on an act, but a misplaced slap leads to unintended consequences.
Kortner’s tender and buoyant vision of life as theatre was a big hit with audiences. It did not have much room to breathe, though: A fewdays after its first public screening in Berlin on 20 January, 1933, Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor and another kind of staged realitybegan to evolve. Kortner, on tour in Scandinavia at the time and a target of antisemitic attacks for years, decided not to return to Germany and did not direct another film until 1955.

Lukas Foerster