Yankee Doodle in Berlin (Silent)

During the First World War, American aviator Captain Bob White accepts a dangerous mission and infiltrates Germany to steal the enemy's invasion plans. Disguising himself as a woman to capitalize on the Kaiser's well-known fondness for the fairer sex, Bob flirts with the amorous Hun. When the jealous Baron von Hindenburg tells the Kaiser's wife that her husband is wooing another woman, all hell breaks loose.

This raucous anti-German farce, written and produced by Mack Sennett, was released in March of 1919 and reached the market a little later than intended. By that time, the Central Powers had been defeated and the Armistice ratified, formally ending the Great War. Still, propaganda-sated audiences enjoyed Yankee Doodle in Berlin because it featured so many popular players from Sennett's stable. The film had actually been designed for stage performer Bothwell Browne, well known at the time for his cross-dressing portrayals. Today it's far more important as one of the few extant Sennett feature films that gathers together all the top comics that he still had under contract.

• silent