The Apartment Above

Two men living in the same apartment house share a surname without being related; one is an older gentleman devoted to classical music, the other a young man given over to swing. When the older man’s niece arrives for a visit and walks into the wrong flat, everything tangles. Leon Trystan directed the musical comedy, from a screenplay by Emanuel Schlechter, Ludwik Starski and Eugeniusz Bodo. In its best known scene Bodo appears dressed as Mae West and sings Sex appeal; the scene is now regarded as one of the earliest queer moments in Polish cinema and is among the most familiar images left from pre-war Polish film. Helena Grossówna, Józef Orwid and Ludwik Sempoliński are also in the cast. It was the last and most profitable film of Urania-Film, a company Bodo part-owned.