Glückskinder (Lucky Kids) is a 1936 film from Germany directed by Paul Martin.
It is a Screwball Comedy and semi-remake (or maybe just a ripoff) of It Happened One Night. (Yes, in Nazi Germany.) Gil Taylor is the staff poet at the the New York Morning Post. When the night court beat reporter is too drunk to make it to night court, Gil is pressed into service. He heads over to night court and sees a young woman, Ann Garden, hauled in front of a judge on a charge of vagrancy. Ann is stone broke and as a consequence is about to be chucked into a prison cell when Gil stands up and claims that he is her fiancé. The judge plainly does not buy it, but chooses to call Gil's bluff, and marries Gil to Ann right there in court.
Gil goes home with a bride that he is literally meeting for the first time. Naturally, sparks fly. In the meantime, after he gets a look at a birthmark on his new wife's shoulder, Gil becomes convinced that Ann is actually the disappeared niece of a New York millionaire.
Star Lilian Harvey (Ann) defected from Nazi Germany in 1939 and was later stripped of her German citizenship for entertaining Allied troops.
Tropes:
- Alcohol Hic: Bobby Hopkins, the drunk night court reporter, is doing this when he calls the newsroom. He hiccups when identifying himself, causing Stoddard to say "I don't know anybody named Bobby Hup."
- Artistic License – Law: There are no lawyers in the night court! Just the defendants and a judge. This is probably the result of German filmmakers having a limited familiarity with the American legal system.
- Artistic License – Sports: A newspaper headline reports on college football, stating "Ohio State beats Notre Dame 2:0". This is an unlikely but possible score for a football game, but in American English, sports scores are represented with dashes, not colons. It should be "2-0".
- Conversation Cut: When explaining her husband to Mr. Jackson, Ann says "He is after all a poet—", and the scene cuts to Frank saying "—whose name will soon be known to all!", as he's congratulating Gil about the scoop in the paper.
- Distinguishing Mark: Discussed and then ultimately averted. Gil finally figures out that his new bride Ann is actually missing heiress Molly Jackson, when he sees that she has a square-shaped birthmark on her right shoulder that matches the description of Ms. Jackson. However it's ultimately revealed that Ann faked the birthmark as part of her Zany Scheme.
- Foreshadowing: One of the newspaper stories in the opening montage is about the missing niece of Jackson the millionaire. Later Ann catches a glance of a newspaper headline about the missing heiress and says "That doesn't look like me." This is foreshadowing the third-act twist where Ann is revealed to be the missing heiress—until it's finally revealed that actually, she isn't.
- Identical Stranger: Ann Garden and heiress Molly Jackson aren't the same person, but they're both played by Lilian Harvey.
- Lohengrin and Mendelssohn: Gil's buddies Stoddard and Frank whistle the Lohengrin part, aka "Here Comes the Bride", when they first meet Ann at Gil's apartment.
- Marriage Before Romance: Gil and Ann are complete strangers who get married when Gil tells a rash lie in a courtroom. Naturally, they fall in love.Gil: Do you think it's possible that our marriage will lead to love?
Ann: It's possible, but highly unlikely. - Meet Cute: Gil and Ann meet for the first time when Gil, in court, claims to be Ann's fiancé in order to save her from going to jail for vagrancy.
- Screwball Comedy: Marriage Before Romance, Meet Cute, wacky characters, a case of mistaken identity, and a lot of fast-paced dialogue.
- Secretly Wealthy: Implied, stated, and ultimately averted. Gil becomes convinced that Ann is actually Molly Jackson, the missing heiress. Eventually he discovers that no, her name is actually Ann Garden and she really was flat broke and sleeping on a park bench; she led him to believe that she was the missing heiress as part of a Zany Scheme.
- Sleep Cute: In a trope borrowed from It Happened One Night, Gil and Ann fall asleep leaning against each other on the train.Frank: Quiet happiness. I could throw up.
- Soft Glass: Gil attempts to punch a guy, but misses completely and winds up breaking the glass on a fire alarm with his fist. Somehow, he does not slice up his hand at all.
- Translation Convention: It's set in New York, and all the characters are Americans, and all the dialogue is in German.
- What, Exactly, Is His Job?: Dialogue establishes that Gil has been at the newspaper for six months but he is not a reporter. Rather, he's a poet, and has spent six months submitting poems that the editor refuses to run. So what the hell is he doing there?
- Worst News Judgment Ever: Gil and Ann's impromptu marriage in the night court is front-page, above-the-fold news in every newspaper in New York...except for Gil's own newspaper the Morning Post, because it never occurred to Gil to file a story. He's fired.
- Zany Scheme: Ann's convoluted scheme to discover the whereabouts of the missing heiress Molly Jackson, and both get Gil's job back and get the reward. She tricks Gil into thinking that she is Molly Jackson. When a pissed-off Gil returns her to her uncle, Ann explains the scheme to Mr. Jackson. When the kidnapper reads in the paper that an impostor has assumed the identity of Molly Jackson, he'll either return the real Molly or make a mistake that leads to his discovery. This works, although it turns out that Molly Jackson wasn't kidnapped, she eloped with a man her family didn't approve.
