Die fidele Herrenpartie (1929)

Peter Fistelhahn, a beauty salon owner who is getting on in years, joins his buddies for a so-called men’s outing, which turns out to be loud, merry and thoroughly lively. All the participants—and Fistelhahn in particular, since on this outing he can finally have his say without being put down, as he is at home—are glad to escape for a day from their “old battle-axe,” his domineering wife. Here, the skinny little bourgeois, usually under the thumb of his buxom wife at home, gets to play the despot for once and is quite happy to make a fool of himself, for instance when Fistelhahn performs as a ballet dancer in floral shorts, or when his pal Fritz Köster tries his hand at being Josephine Baker! But on the drive home at night, the jolly men’s outing—a brief escape for the little wiry fellow—ends rather painfully: Peter Fistelhahn falls out of the car. He picks himself up again and staggers along until he finally comes upon a nightclub. Peter goes in and promptly gets caught up in a full-blown brawl, which leaves the old man with a clearly visible bump. To make matters worse, he is accused of having clobbered a uniformed police officer with a champagne bottle, sending the public servant to the hospital. Fistelhahn is now on the run, despite being unaware of any wrongdoing. After a long night, he finally makes it home. By then, his innocence has already been established.