Der zerbrochene Krug

Village magistrate Emil Jannings wakens with wounds fore and aft on his head and a severe hangover. On top of that, his clerk tells him that the Inspector General has just suspended the judge in the next town over and is on his way her. Get the sausages out of the court records! Go to the parson's house to borrow his wig! When the IG shows up, he has Jannings conduct court; the case involves a jug supposedly broken by the lady's daughter's fiancee, but matters are darker than that, and as the case proceeds its erratic way, it becomes clear to the audience that the bumbling judge is in it up to his perrukeless, battered skull.

A decade earlier, Jannings had been acclaimed the world over for his movie roles; sound may have driven him back to Germany, but he is wonderful as the bumbling nitwit judge in this movie adapted from a comedy by Heinrich von Kleist. Jannings co-directs with Gustave Ucicky, and for what is basically a one-set play, it's opened up marvelously with a camera nicely handled by Fritz Arno Wagner. All of which is unnecessary; the opening is a perfect silent comedy.