L'ussaro nero

Captain Conrad Veidt and his faithful companion, Lieutenant Wolf Albach-Retty, officers of the Black Hussars, are on a secret mission to rescue the local Princess from the French forces -- this is Napoleonic era stuff -- and return her to her proper fiancee, Count Bernhard Goetzke. While the French forces are looking for them, they hide out at a local inn and make love to the innkeeper's nieces. They don't realize that the one Veidt has set his cap at is the princess they seek: Mady Christians. The French arrive and drive them out, so they set out to where the French governor is keeping Princess Mady so she can be married to a Polish prince of Napoleon's choice. Along the way, they decide that Veidt will impersonate the prince.

It's a little bit of this and that: some roguish behavior, Otto Wallburg in a Herman-Bing role as the the French governor, several songs, Conrad Veidt at his most roguish and dashing best, and Mady Christians at her loveliest. It's a lot of fun, if nothing out of the ordinary, with its mixture of THE CAPTAIN FROM KOPENICK and THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, it's all clearly a well calculated bit of nonsense. While parts of it haven't aged well -- particularly the operetta songs -- it still has its charms, particularly the leads.