UNDER THE LANTERN brings a change of pace and focus to the Cambridge Film Festival’s season of Lamprecht silents. It’s a melodrama that revolves around three people. Else and Hans are lovers who struggle to be together in the face of her authoritarian father’s veto on their union, but eventually Else is thrown out of the family home and ends up in Hans’s flat, which he shares with his friend Max. The friends’ relationship is complicated by Max’s rapid declaration of love for Else. Once she has recovered from her change in circumstances, Else realises that she and Hans can be together and she seduces him by one of simplest, but naughtiest, of chat-up lines: ‘I can’t undo my shoelace’.

Life in Weimar Berlin is tough with rampant unemployment, homelessness and poverty being just a blink away for many. Hans sells cigarettes from a kiosk, Max performs tricks and sells wind-up toys in the street; there are few steady, permanent jobs. In trying to generate some income, the three devise a daft, but instantly successful, music hall act involving the men dressed as a pantomime horse and Else as ringmaster, complete with top hat and whip. However, jealousy and revenge kick in and Else’s slide down accelerates. UNDER THE LANTERN is less overtly concerned with social issues as some of Lamprecht’s other titles from the 1920s, but it does highlight the vulnerability of women in the face of male dominance – it’s easy for a few setbacks to put Else on the path to ruin. Maybe this all sounds a little gloomy, but the films are shot through with humour, humanity and even redemption (sometimes).

UNDER THE LANTERN screens on 4th Sep at 20.30 (St Philips) and at 14.00 on 6th Sep (APH) at the Cambridge Film Festival.