‘April, April!’ or — A Delicious Debut?

There’s possibly no group of films I adore more than Douglas Sirk’s American melodramas, so I was extremely excited about diving into his very first feature film, ‘April, April!’ (1935), made back in Germany when the director was still known as Detlef Sierck. What would it be like? Would I be able to recognise those distinctive Sirkian touches? Would it be another melodrama or something else entirely? Well…

The plot is utterly ridiculous — a German prince places a large noodle order, specifically for “tropical pasta”, at the Lampe family’s pasta factory, or ‘nudelfabrik’, for his upcoming expedition to Africa (see, I told you it was ridiculous). The nouveau riche Lampe family are obsessive social climbers so make a huge, public deal of this momentous news to their friends, two of whom decide to play an April Fool’s joke on them in order to bring them down a peg or two by making a prank phone call pretending the prince will be visiting their factory tomorrow morning in person.

When the Lampes discover it’s only a ruse, and not wishing to lose face, they frantically hire an actor to impersonate the prince so the appearance of a royal visit can still go ahead. However, it just so happens that the real prince, after reading in the local newspaper that he’s apparently going to be visiting a pasta factory in the morning, decides to visit the nudelfabrik for himself. Needless to say, hilarity ensues.

So yeah, ‘April, April!’ isn’t a melodrama at all but a full-blown farcical comedy, and an extremely funny (and extremely well made) one at that.

For one thing, the very concept of German pasta is, in itself, inherently hilarious and every time a character mentioned ‘tropical pasta’ or ‘nudelfabrik’, which they thankfully do A LOT, I was in hysterics (I’m even giggling at them again as I type this). At one point the fake prince is taken on a tour of the nudelfabrik and, wanting to put on a show of princely aloof disinterest in the pasta manufacturing process, ignorantly asks Julius Lampe if that’s where he makes his pasta… pointing to his office desk. Herr Lampe has to reply that, no, he doesn’t make the pasta at his office desk.

Sirk’s handling of both the humour and pacing is spot-on, and whenever I kept wondering when the idea of a prince being shown round a German pasta factory might run out of steam or the idea might wear a bit thin the film always found unexpected and inventive ways to keep reinvigourating itself.

But it’s the visual flourishes and small character beats that are the most delightful, nearly all of which are almost unnecessary to the actual plot but vitally important for knowing everything we need about these people, their mindset and their world.

There’s an absolutely glorious moment when the real prince telephones the Lampe household so Sirk cuts to the mother answering the phone. But rather than have her do what we might expect — seeing her walk into shot from either the left or the right — he has her ascend from below like some sort of gigantic sea-monster only to then descend afterwards to whence she came. It’s a perfect combination of the visually inspired and the incredibly funny, and the film is crammed with touches like this.

There’s another moment of fleeting brilliance when the mother is given some urgent news by her maid but just before we cut away to the next scene Sirk lingers on her for an extra couple of seconds as she silently admires herself in the mirror. And why not? She looks great! Again, it’s a tiny moment but it’s these tiny moments which tell us everything about his characters that Sirk was so great at.

Or how about when the daughter, killing time in a cafe, orders a big cream cake to ease her anger and frustration? It’s funny, but it’s even funnier when Sirk later cuts back to her having a second because the first one hadn’t done the job properly.

‘April, April!’ might be a comedy but you can still detect the elements Sirk would bring to his later melodramas — the digs at the middle-class, the memorable female characters, those wonderfully ornate opening credits, his use of music — but there was always that sharp, satirical irony in his work anyway so the shift from comedy to melodrama shouldn’t be that surprising.

I had no idea Douglas Sirk had made comedies but now I’ve finally seen one all I can think is — what the hell have I been missing out on?!