Ein Kuß in der Sommernacht Review: Max Schreck in a Rom-Com?

If you are looking for some lost masterpiece of German expressionism, you can keep walking. Ein Kuß in der Sommernacht is not that, but it is still a weirdly charming relic if you have the patience for dusty old silent films.

Silent cinema nerds will probably find it neat, especially for one specific cast member. Anyone else? You will probably be bored out of your mind within ten minutes. 🤷‍♂️

The Dracula in the Room

Yes, Max Schreck is in this. The actual Nosferatu guy is in a lighthearted summer romance movie, which feels completely wrong but is also the only reason I wanted to track this down.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Ein Kuß in der Sommernacht (1933) through its definitive frames.

Every time he comes on screen, your brain expects him to bite someone or shadow-crawl up a wall. Instead, he is just doing normal comedy acting, though his face still looks like it belongs in a dark, damp castle. 🧛‍♂️

The plot is basically about young people running around in the countryside getting into silly romantic misunderstandings. It is the kind of story that would be resolved in five minutes if people just spoke like normal humans, but then we would not have a movie.

It lacks the sharp slapstick energy of American shorts from the same era, like The Sleuth. Instead, it feels more like a filmed theater play that someone decided to shoot outside on a very sunny day.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Ein Kuß in der Sommernacht (1933) through its definitive frames.

Some random things I wrote down

• The print I watched was in rough shape, with so many scratches it looked like it was raining indoors during the sunny scenes.
• There is a dog in one scene that clearly did not want to be there and kept trying to walk off-camera.
• Rolf von Goth has incredibly shiny hair. Like, how much grease did they actually use back then?

I will say, the outdoor scenery has this very cozy, lazy-summer vibe to it that made me feel relaxed. It has some of that same slow-paced charm you find in other mid-20s stuff like The Big Show, where nobody is in a rush.

Is it a great film? No, not really. But there is something nice about watching people from a hundred years ago just fooling around in a field. ☀️

Sometimes you just want to put on something quiet while the rain hits your window. If you can actually manage to find a copy of this, it is worth a lazy afternoon look.