Silent films were genuinely international. While today's Hollywood movies are typically dubbed straight into German, French, Russian and Spanish, films were originally adapted much more closely to different countries' tastes. Reading intertitles specially written for them, an audience in Florence or Heraklion or Omsk could enjoy a story about people with local names (John became Hans or Jan or Ioan or any other name that suited his character better - if a fat man was funnier coming from Düsseldorf rather than Dortmund, then that's where he came from). Local jokes and references were built into the dialogue, and audiences welcomed foreign actors into their lives with far greater affection than later when the movies became talkies. Truus was funny, pretty, spunky - and audiences across Europe were destined to love her.