Title: Mieheke
Director: Valentin Vaala
Country of Origin: Finland
Year: 1936
Screening format: DVD
Setting: Home
First viewing? yes
A little white lie spirals out of control. How many times have we heard that one before? It’s films like Mieheke, I suppose that lead to the inevitable comparison of Valentin Vaala with Ernst Lubitsch. It certainly isn’t the serious melodramas like Ihmiset Suviyösää, beautiful though they may be, that gave Vaala his reputation for “sophisticated urban comedy”. Mieheke gives Finland born, Michigan raised actress Tuulikki Paananen the first major role of her brief career (the most well-known in the US being Consuelo Contreras in Lewton’s The Leopard Man). Paananen plays a young woman who lies about being married in order to obtain a job as a secretary. When her employer insists on meeting her husband, she plucks one from the cafe across the street in the form of Tauno Palo. In true “sophisticated urban” fashion, the men are incorrigible philanderers and the women love to tease. In keeping with the Lubitsch tradition, there are even a handful of musical numbers. Tuulikki Paananen, in her first starring role, is an absolute delight as the waifish mastermind of this particular marriage plot. We also get to spend a few memorable minutes with a still quite young Regina Linnanheimo a few years before she would turn in a blistering performance in Teuvo Tulio’s Levoton Veri.
The Church at Miller, Glenn 