Summary
Bulgarian powder smoke drifts across a battlefield of the heart: Major Spiridoff’s martial ardour melts into epistolary longing the instant the trumpet calls, leaving Nadina—Colonel Popoff’s hothouse orchid of a daughter—clutching a promise as brittle as filigree. Into this perfumed fortress bursts Lieutenant Bumerli, a Swiss rover reeking of cordite and cocoa-dust, having gnawed nothing but chocolate bullets for three sleepless days. Nadina’s boudoir becomes a clandestine opera box: curtains billow, candelabra flicker, and three women—Nadina, her widowed cousin Mascha, and Aurelia the matriarch—turn enemy uniform into baptismal robe, secreting daguerreotype love-tokens inside the coat seams. The fugitive slips out disguised as a Bulgarian officer, pawn-ticket in pocket, only to reappear months later as a diplomatic delegate, pockets still stitched with contraband hearts. When coat and photographs resurface at the betrothal breakfast, betrothed Alexis discovers Nadina’s clandestine portrait, duels the chocolate-eared intruder, and is disarmed; Mascha claims the vanquished fiancé, while Nadina reclaims her cocoa-scented soldier on the very balcony where the war first dissolved into tenderness.
Synopsis
Major Spiridoff is in love with Nadina, daughter of Colonel Popoff, who, like the lover, is an officer in the Bulgarian army. The major's love dream is shattered by the declaration of war between Bulgaria and Servia, and he goes to the front after exacting from "the girl he left behind him" a pledge to remain faithful to him. At the Servian Camp Lieutenant Bumerli, a young Swiss adventurer, joins the army as a volunteer. The two armies meet and the Servians are defeated. Lieutenant Bumerli escapes, hotly pursued, and is chased into the garden of Colonel Popoff. He climbs the balcony, which opens from Nadina's room. Nadina is about to retire for the night. He wins her sympathy, until she sees him eating his last chocolate drops. The Servians surround the house to search it. Nadina hides her chocolate soldier behind the curtains. Mascha and Aurelia aid in the deception and at last the soldiers withdraw. Mascha wants to see the fugitive. For three days and nights Bumerli has lived only on chocolate drops. Now the best in the house is none too good for him, and though in the enemy's country, through the kindness of the three lonely women, he is permitted to spend the night as their guest. Bumerli's dream. He thinks he has been captured by the enemy, but it is only a dream. The soldiers are still on guard, waiting in the hope of finding the fugitive. Bumerli tries to get away, but sees that the house is surrounded. Back to the three lonely women. He must have a disguise in order to get away. Aurelia, Nadina's mother, thinks of her husband's coat, a uniform of the Bulgarian army. Bumerli is provided with the garment. Nadina, Mascha, her cousin, and Aurelia each secretly slips a photograph into one of the pockets. The escape of Bumerli. The Bulgarians salute him as he passes them. Massakroff, a Bulgarian officer, however, is suspicious. Massakroff follows, but Bumerli forces him to jump off a steep cliff. To get rid of the coat, Burmerli pawns it. Meanwhile peace has been agreed upon, and Bumerli and Popoff are both sent as delegates to sign the treaty of peace. After signing the treaty, Bumerli tells of his narrow escape at the hands of the Bulgarians. Three lonely women had aided him by lending him a coat. What a joke. "That old fool husband of hers would never know." The return of the heroes. Alexis and the Colonel tell of the amusing Captain Bumerli and how some Bulgarian women helped him to escape. Consternation; if the Colonel and Alexis should learn the truth. The Colonel wants his coat. It is missing. Bumerli, anxious to repay the favor done him, redeems the coat and determines to restore it to the three charming ladies who had aided in his escape. Bumerli visits the home of Colonel Popoff, ignorant of the fact that the ladies are his daughter, his wife and his wife's cousin. The recognition proves a mutual surprise. The Colonel gets his coat, but does not notice the photographs, which are still in the pockets. The three women are worried about their photographs. Nadina asks Bumerli to return hers, "From Nadina to her Chocolate Soldier." He has never known it was in the coat. The same with Aurelia and Mascha. They attempt to recover the photographs from the Colonel's coat. Bumerli secures the photographs and hands them back, but gives each of the ladies the wrong one. Meanwhile. Alexis prepares for his wedding with Nadina, and makes satisfactory financial arrangements with the Colonel. The wedding morn. Bumerli is a guest, but a sad one, for the girl who saved his life is about to be married to the enemy. The entrance of Massakroff creates a sensation, for he recognizes Bumerli as the man who had been chased in that very garden. Alexis sees the photograph which Nadina had given Bumerli. He demands an explanation, but Nadina gives him hack his ring and breaks the engagement. The challenge. Bumerli and Alexis fight. Bumerli disarms his adversary, and the duel comes to a sudden end. They return after the conflict. Alexis and Mascha decide they are congenial to each other. Bumerli is about to be turned away as an unwelcome guest, but once more he visits the balcony where he had been saved. Nadina, too, is lingering on that balcony. The two lovers find out that they have cared for each other all the time, and Nadina gets her Chocolate Soldier.
Review Excerpt
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Imagine, if you will, a world where artillery shells whistle like off-key tenors and the only rations sweeter than hope are the last dregs of chocolate drops clinging to a Swiss mercenary’s pocket. Ernst Lubitsch, had he squinted through the celluloid of 1915, might have recognised a soulmate in this one-reel confection, for The Chocolate Soldier pirouettes along the knife-edge between bayonet and boudoir with the same feather-light cynicism that would later define Die Tangokönigin. Yet here t..."
