Wanda’s Trick
Dr. R. Portegg (Rosa Porten, Franz Eckstein)
A young woman working in a cigarette factory is hoping to marry the director but he’s not interested in a serious relationship – until she comes up lucky on the lottery. Since the business is close to bankruptcy, he then asks her for her hand. But now she gives him the brush-off, resulting in a stand-off that is the start of a very entertaining game of proficiency between the two, a game in which she proves herself to be a loyal partner with successful marketing ideas. He has to admit that he had underestimated her.
Money, marriage and class relations are indeed inextricably caught up here but the narrative as such lends the main female character a note of serious comedy. Which is how she is played by comedienne Wanda Treumann: With earnest astonishment and skepticism, with dignified sensuality and with non-conformist but intelligent dynamism and obstinacy.
The serious aspect of this comedy is underlined by the realistic setting: the work in the cigarette factory, a walk through the streets of Berlin or a park, the apartment in which Wanda lives with her mother. Thus the comic aspect is derived from the storyline and from the perseverance of the main character.
_Annette Förster
Dr. R. Portegg (Rosa Porten, Franz Eckstein)
Dass sich hinter dem Pseudonym »Dr. R. Portegg« das Ehepaar Rosa Porten und Franz Eckstein verbarg, ist eine Erkenntnis der jüngeren Filmgeschichtsforschung. Die 1884 geborene Rosa Porten war zuvor, wenn überhaupt, als Schwester des Stummfilmstars Henny Porten bekannt, gehörte jedoch als Darstellerin, Drehbuchautorin und Regisseurin zahlreicher Komödien und Dramen zu den ersten Protagonist*innen der frühen Filmgeschichte. Beim IFFF Dortmund | Köln waren 2015 bereits ihre Regiewerke Wandas Trick und Der neueste Stern vom Varieté zu sehen.