In Vertretung (1913)

Baron von Rodern has a daughter named Meta, who is soon to be married. But the old gentleman has very definite ideas about her prospective husband, because he must be able to handle Meta, a “crazy chick,” as he calls her. And so, according to the nobleman, only a real “lady-killer” with plenty of experience will do. But Meta’s sweetheart, the strapping Lieutenant Fritz von Gernsdorff, is nothing like that. To sound out the chosen suitor, Baron von Rodern promptly travels to Vienna to inspect Lieutenant Fritz closely. “Pleasure first, duty afterward,” thinks the strict father, and he downs a bottle or two of champagne with a lively cabaret soubrette before he can begin his examination of the lieutenant. Meta fears the worst and asks her aunt—her father’s sister—to accompany her to Vienna and coach Fritz, so that he won’t make any mistakes during her father’s questioning. In the meantime, Fritz has set off to visit the Roderns, but finds nobody at home in their small hometown whom he can ask for Meta’s hand. Meanwhile, Rodern has made his way to Gernsdorff’s apartment and meets a young man who is just to his taste, since he, too, is all too fond of alcohol. How could the country nobleman guess that this fake Fritz is actually his clever soldier-servant, Wilhelm? The two men quickly become friendly, and, dead drunk, they even drink toasting each other as brothers, thereby bringing to an end the embarrassing interrogation about the supposed lieutenant’s fitness for marriage. In the meantime, Meta and Auntie Rodern have checked into a Vienna hotel, where they meet Fleurette, the Baron’s new Viennese acquaintance. The sight of the three women in his room sobers Rodern up in an instant when he returns from drinking with Wilhelm. After Rodern leaves, the false Fritz has summoned the house’s plump cook, and the two are sleeping peacefully on Fritz’s sofa. Fritz cannot believe his eyes when he returns home from his fruitless trip to the Roderns’ residence and sees his soldier-servant sleeping on his sofa, not only in his uniform but dead drunk as well. When Meta also appears at the apartment and cheerfully tells her Fritz that he must have made a splendid impression on her father, confusion reigns everywhere. It reaches a fever pitch when, at last, Baron von Rodern also staggers in and, seeing Gernsdorff, has to conclude that he must have drunk a toast to brotherhood with a different lieutenant. Only when Wilhelm appears does the prospective father-in-law realize that the soldier-servant, as the film’s title indicates, had acted in his master’s place. In the end, no one is angry with anyone else, and the wedding can take place soon.