These two delightful films show how early on Lubitsch developed milieu as a comic and dramatic force; the witty direction of actors and predilection for risqué situations is intimately tied in with this. In I Don't Want to Be a Man, an early comedy of sexual identity, the humor goes beyond innuendo. Ossi (Oswalda), who boldly indulges in drinking, smoking, playing poker, and similar unladylike activities, is placed in the care of a male guardian who vows to "cut her down to size." Chafing under his reign, she decides to go all out and live like a man, in convincing drag. The two "men" smoke cigars, drink, and wind up a little too cozy in the back seat of a cab. The Merry Jail, set in pre-World War I Vienna, is a reworking of Die Fledermaus, with Emil Jannings in the jailer's role. Jannings was to become a Lubitsch "alter ego" on the screen, though Lubitsch also appears in the film. Another silent with a musical bent.