The Italian Straw Hat (1928)

It's 1895, and charming groom Fadinard (Albert Préjean) is on the way to his wedding when his horse finds a straw hat hanging from a bush and proceeds to munch on it. He discovers that the hat belongs to a lady (Olga Tschechowa), who is having an extramarital tryst in the bushes with a soldier, Lieutenant Tavernier (Geymond Vital). The lady cannot go home to her husband hatless, and so, being a violent type, the lieutenant demands that Fadinard replace it, or face the consequences. Fadinard sets about this task, but finds that -- of course -- the hat is an exceedingly rare type, and simply walking into a hat store isn't going to do the trick. Worse, he has his own wedding party to placate.

Astonishingly, Clair directs all this with a cool head. There are no goggle-eyes or giant pratfalls; Fadinard handles his predicament with a suave good nature. Even the "deaf uncle" character with the ear horn keeps his dignity. More amazingly, Clair gets away with relatively few intertitles; it's an almost purely visual film. Even the scene in which Fadinard realizes the infidelity of the couple is done entirely through images. But best of all, the film is still very, very funny.

Flicker Alley has released the film to DVD, and it's yet another superior job from them. The movie looks gorgeous, with a choice of two scores, a simple piano score by Philip Carli, or a full orchestral score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Bonuses include two short films, Clair's La Tour (1928) and Ferdinand Zecca's Fun After the Wedding (1907). There is a detailed liner notes booklet and a copy of the original play is a DVD-Rom extra.