In the wake of his father's death Valentin took a three-year break from performing during which he constructed his own twenty-piece one-man band (with which he eventually toured in 1906).

[5] The film script was written by Bertolt Brecht, directed by Erich Engel, and also featured Valentin's cabaret partner, Liesl Karlstadt, as well as an ensemble of stage, film, and cabaret performers, including Max Schreck, Erwin Faber, Josef Eichheim, and Blandine Ebinger.

[7] Brecht regularly watched Valentin perform his cabaret routines in Munich's beerhalls, and compared him to Chaplin, not least for his "virtually complete rejection of mimicry and cheap psychology.

[10] Valentin's naïve sense of humour produced sketches that in spirit were loosely connected to dadaism, social expressionism and the Neue Sachlichkeit.

[12] His sketches often parodied and derided "shopkeepers, firemen, military band players, professionals with small roles in the economy and the defence of society".