The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg

Lubitsch, 1927, MGM: Ramon Novarro as a prince sent to Heidelberg, Norma Shearer as the barmaid he is not allowed to keep. From the operetta, before the songs. Lubitsch's American romance: beer gardens, duels, a kiss that a throne will cancel. It is the film in which he proved he could do melancholy without a bedroom farce. Novarro's face does the graduating. Shearer, not yet the MGM wife, is the reason he should have stayed.