Max, der Zirkuskönig (1924)

Max Linder plays Count Pompadour, a nonchalant, aristocratic rogue, charmer, and man about town. Although his gruff uncle orders him to finally choose one of three fairly wealthy young women as a wife, Max is interested in someone quite different. Count Max has had his eye for some time on Ketty, the beautiful daughter of a circus director. But since her father will accept only a man from the circus business as his son-in-law, Max now has to work hard to acquire some performing skills. The jack-of-all-trades first takes an intensive six-lesson course in acrobatics, and, along the way, also takes a course in lion taming. When neither proves particularly successful, he tries his hand at taming a flea circus. As expected, Count Max causes a great deal of chaos and laughter with these circus routines. For instance, the young count gradually drives a hotel guest who is constantly suffering from headaches—and staying directly below Max’s practice room—out of his mind with his rehearsals. The fleas, which Max carelessly put in a box and then slipped into his jacket pocket, escape during a circus performance and cause a full-blown panic among the audience. His attempt to train the big cats also goes badly wrong. A clown friend, to do Max a favor, has squeezed himself into a lion costume and performs rehearsed tricks in the ring during the show. Unfortunately, a rival has opened the lion cage in order to make Max look foolish, and now Max and his clown are facing a real king of the savannah. In the end, however, all turns out happily, and Max wins the hand of the woman he loves.