How is this film not better known? It's a BILLY WILDER film, and the two before it were Some Like It Hot and The Apartment. And it stars JIMMY CAGNEY!
And on top of that, it's really funny. Possible explanations: it makes fun of both America and the USSR (albeit the former fairly gently - although one of the main characters does get lines like "capitalism is like a dead herring in the moonlight - it's shiny but IT STINKS!"). Like another lesser-known Billy Wilder film, A Foreign Affair, it's set in a still-battered divided Berlin, where Cagney is a Coca-Cola executive who is trying to claw his way back to prominence after a Benny-Goodman-related disaster in the Middle East torpedoed his seemingly-inevitable rise to the top of the corporate ladder. He thinks he's cemented it with a deal to bottle Coca Cola in the Soviet Union, but is blindsided when his boss calls from Atlanta and not only nixes the idea of Coke behind the iron curtain but announces that his wild-child 17-year-old daughter will be arriving any minute. Before this point we have been fully introduced to Cagney's fast-talking, philandering (his hot blonde German secretary, Fräulein Ingeborg keeps promising to teach him about umlauts, which is clearly some kind of innuendo, and he has promised her a good time as soon as his wife and two kids head off on a vacation) schemer C.R. "Mac" MacNamara. We also introduced to three Soviet representatives
who try (and fail) to gouge him into giving them the Coke formula, and who also fall head over heels for Fräulein Ingeborg. We see more of them later. Anyway, the daughter, Scarlett, shows up on a flight from Paris, having persuaded the flight crew to let her fly and got them to bid for her (the winner, Pierre, is very put out when Mac and his wife whisk Scarlett away. Scarlett looks like she'll be a handful - she's a little Southern princess, used to getting her way, and who has managed to be engaged several times, which is part of the reason her parents sent her off on a whirlwind tour of all the Coca-Cola bottling plants in Europe. She is also very ditzy, and fond of words like "marvy". Anyway, the plan is to watch her for a couple of weeks, but we cut to two months later and a very smug Mac is on the phone with her father (Mr. Hazeltine) saying that it's been no trouble and she's a changed girl, having been taken to all sorts of museums and cultural events in the interim. Hazeltine is delighted, and hints that he will reward Mac with the big promotion (to the London office) he's been lusting after, and is arriving at noon the next day to pick Scarlett up. Of course, in the middle of this phone call Mac gets another one from his wife to inform him that Scarlett is missing. After getting off the 'phone Mac mobilizes the troops (and calls people like David Brinkley) to find her, and discovers that his chauffeur has been dropping her off at the Brandenburg gate every night and picking her up before morning for the past six weeks (for 100 Marks a pop). This means, of course, that she is now missing in East Berlin. Except that about ten minutes later she strolls into his office. His relief is undercut by her then announcing that she has married a communist called Otto, who is waiting outside on his motorcycle. Otto is played by Horst Bucholz, who is probably best known for being the really annoying youngest one in The Magnificent Seven, but he reveals here a deft touch with farce (although apparently he really pissed Cagney off, because he complained about him always trying to steal scenes and said he came close to thumping him a few times), and it is he who delivers the herring line, along with many others critical of capitalism and the West, prompting outraged responses from Mac.
It soon further emerges that Otto has won a place to study rocket science in Moscow and he and Scarlett are scheduled to board a train thence tomorrow, but Mac has a plan. First he gifts Otto his own personal cuckoo clock as a wedding present (which, unbeknownst to Otto, has a little Uncle Sam in place of the cuckoo, and plays Yankee Doodle Dandy) and second he has his assistant Schlemmer put a balloon that says "Russkis go home" on his motorcycle's tailpipe.
These have the desired effect of getting Otto arrested, which means he is unavailable to pick Scarlett up the next morning at 6:30 as she expects. All is well, Mac thinks, except that Scarlett collapses and the doctor who examines her discovers that she is pregnant. So now Mac has to break Otto out of the prison (where he is being tortured with non-stop playings of "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini") he got him put in. This involves the help of Ingeborg and Schlemmer
and the three Soviets. But it is only the start of his problems. Although Otto is now thought an American Spy (the music drove him to sign a confession) and cannot return to the East, he is still far from the ideal match to please Hazeltine, so the final third or so of the movie is Mac marshalling all available forces to convert him from Otto Piffl, humble communist student, into Otto von Droste-Schattenburg, scion of one of the oldest (and most inbred - they're bleeders) houses of Europe. This is Cagney at his most rapid-fire, and his delivery is quite astonishing. (It's also the explanation of the title, as he keeps listing his demands on the phone as he snaps his fingers.) Will Mac pull it off? Will he get his promotion? Will he save his marriage, as his wife knows about Ingeborg's umlaut lessons and is heading back to Atlanta (which Mac refers to as "Siberia with mint juleps")? Let's just say all is wrapped up as nicely as a cuckoo clock that plays Yankee Doodle Dandy.
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