This utterly irreverent comedy of sexual mores, made in 1920 by the Swedish director Mauritz Stiller, was much admired by Lubitsch, who claimed that his “touch” derived from this film. It was also a forerunner of Chaplin's A Woman of Paris (1923) and, with its emphasis on montage and imaginative use of decor, has been cited as an influence on the Soviet filmmakers, including Eisenstein, who called Stiller's works “amusement parks of attractions.” The plot is a fast-paced game played by five players: a professor of entomology whose peculiar interest is the polygamous sex life of the striver beetle; his wife, who is carrying on an affair with a sculptor and a flirtation with an airplane-flying baron; and their niece, the professor's own constant nymph who strives only to perfect her stuffed cabbage. The sky was the limit on costs for this elegant production which boasts one of the cinema's earliest aerial sequences, and a specially composed ballet performed at the Royal Opera House of Stockholm.