'Wo Ist Mein Schatz?' (roughly, 'Where's My Sweetie-Pie?') is a very early comedy written and directed by and starring Ernst Lubitsch. Although Lubitsch went on to become one of the most important directors in movie history, this early effort is nothing much. In fact, 'Where's My Sweetie-Pie?' has almost the exact same premise as 'Mrs Doubtfire', but without the cross-dressing.

Lubitsch plays a young husband (named Ernst Lubitsch!) who must contend with an overbearing mother-in-law and a wife who expects him to stay at home. When Ernst receives a letter informing him that he must come to the chess club that night for a championship match, I assumed that this was a ruse contrived by Ernst's cronies so that he could go out for a night of drunken carousing. I was wrong: Ernst really *does* go to the chess club that night... in a room with no booze, no cigars, and no sexy jungfrau ... and he really *does* play a chess match. (Although he doesn't follow regulation play: Ernst picks up a chessman and moves it, then changes his mind and moves another one instead. This is against the rules.)

Ernst's wife (named Louise, like the actress who plays her) throws him out and divorces him. Ernst sends her a letter, declaring that he's going to commit suicide. Reading the newspaper in his club, Ernst spots an advert with his wife's address: she wants to engage a manservant.

Ernst's hairdresser kits him out in a ginger wig with a fringe that makes him look like Graham Chapman in a Monty Python sketch. Then Ernst goes to his own (former) home, where of course his wife and mother-in-law don't recognise him. They promptly hire him as a combination porter, footman and butler. Complications ensue.

This movie is amusing but clumsy. In one scene, when Ernst sabotages a spoon so that it will leak, we see a long, long, LONG close-up of Ernst nobbling the spoon. When Louise acquires a would-be suitor who looks at least 70 years old, Ernst chucks him down the staircase. Because the scene is clearly genuine (no stunt double, no trick photography; Ernst is really throwing an old man down the stairs), this action is disturbing rather than funny.

I'm very much a fan of Lubitsch, but even at this early stage in his career he was doing much better work than this film. I'll rate this movie 4 out of 10.

Ernst Lubitsch writes, stars and directs in one of his earliest features Wo ist mein Schatz—a humble and charming one-note comedy about a man stuck between his rock and a hard place; the mother-in- law. It is, I believe, his earliest surviving feature known about today, and while it doesn't quite showcase the future-famed director's skills quite as strikingly as Madame DuBarry would just a few years later, there's still enough here to make for an amusing and light-hearted half-hour. Louise Schenrich is charming and aloof as Der Gatte's (Lubitsch) easily-tempered wife and Lanchen Voss is notably subdued in her portrayal of a demanding and manipulative mother-in-law. Lubitsch himself is the central star however and his performance is at times a joy to watch, even if his disregard for the "third wall" borders on the absurd. Most importantly though, there's a moral to the story here. Never share a house of matrimony with your lover's mother, and if your wife kicks up about your interest in attending a chess tournament until one in the morning, offer to take up being a barfly instead.

"Wo ist mein Schatz?" is just one of several German-language and English-language titles for this 35-minute short film. It is from the year 1916, the days of World War I and so this one has its 100th anniversary this year. The writer and director here is Ernst Lubitsch, in his early-mid-20s , but despite his age he was already a fairly experienced filmmaker because he started so early and was quickly very prolific. The title already gives away that this film is mostly comedy. Every other genre is almost non-existent or negligible (romance). Lubitsch also plays a main character himself in here as he frequently did in his early filmmaking day (a similarity to Fassbinder). This is of course quite a while away from the days Lubitsch became an Oscar-nominated filmmaker who made it big in Hollywood. In terms of the story here, I guess it was okay. Nothing really entertaining or funny and this film is not a must-see by any means, but people who like silent films more than I do may have a good time watching. I personally have little (actually, zero) interest in watching it again and that's why I give it a thumbs-down, even if it not a failure by any means.