Ernst Lubitsch

[Michael Kerpan]

Alas, no DVR ability anymore (change of cable provider, meant this is a too-expensive extra cost).

One of my very favorites also. Calvin.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

This is incredible news. I had the pleasure of seeing this at UCLA back in 2018 on a gorgeous print for their small Lubitsch retrospective that coincided with the release of Joseph McBride’s book on Lubitsch. Back then, I thought it was the best of all his silent period films I’ve seen. I was struck about how even a silent film can sort of exude the feeling of musicality and rhythm just through its images in thst major party sequence. It’s pure Lubitsch and just an absolute delight!

Even without a DVR, I’m sure it’ll end up somewhere! If it doesn’t, I hope being on HBO Max means that Warner Archive will release it. I’ve been wanting to see this again, and the one copy floating around channels online is an abysmal VHS rip.

[Michael Kerpan]

STIP is the noisiest silent film I've seen (along with Ozu's I Was Born But).

I've long treasured that VHS rip...

[domino harvey]

Saw Angel last night. A fun movie that clearly showcases two things Lubitsch does extraordinarily well. The first is that he takes his time outlining the central plot of a film. We really have no idea where the film is going until we're into the second reel. I often go to films after work, and so sometimes I'm restless/tired/hungry. With his films however, I'm transfixed, and totally glued to the screen, eager to see what happens next. His ability to put surprising plot points (Angel's desertion of Halton) and film them in unique ways is so simple, but works so well. That moment called into my mind another point, which I really noticed during Cluny Brown and the last scene of Ninotchka. Lubitsch's films are tremendously musical even though there are not a large amount of musical cues. Moments like the one I just mentioned fall completely silently, and make the viewer feel that all the air has been sucked out of the room. I keep thinking music stopped playing, but there hadn't necessarily been music in the previous scene, but the way his films move and progress is so musical that the silent moments feel accented.

Not a laugh out loud film, but certainly top rate and on par with most of his classics I've seen from the 1930s. Certainly calls to mind the maturity of The Shop Around The Corner.

I caught up with this last night and enjoyed it too-- I can see why it hasn't had a great critical reputation over the years, given how portentously much of the film plays out, but I thought the (mostly) self-serious tone worked well with the material. And how constantly Lubitsch finds ways to undercut the familiar melodramatic beats by skillful elision is fascinating: this is a film where almost every key emotional scene is either elided completely (in a welcome show of faith in the audience) or relayed and experienced by bystanders, all the way to the final shot, where the actors turn their backs to the audience, putting us in the same position at the emotional climax.

However, unlike you, I did laugh out loud several times and I think the film had more than enough comic relief to cause temporary confusion about whether this was a drama or comedy-- I think Lubitsch knew his hand was getting a bit heavy in the dramatics elsewhere and did his magic to compensate! Edward Everett Horton is hilarious as always, and I loved his debates with the other valet on matters of propriety (though I thought Marshall's cheap laff line at his expense late in the film was an unusually cruel misstep from Lubitsch and Raphaelson).

[L.A.]

Coming to Blu-ray January 18th from the George Eastman Museum and Kino Classics!

Three Women (1924)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Starring May McAvoy, Pauline Frederick, Lew Cody, Marie Prevost

With his third American film, Three Women (made just after The Marriage Circle) Ernst Lubitsch continued to endow Hollywood studio films with the European sophistication and graceful storytelling that had become his hallmark while working as a director in Germany. Pauline Frederick and May McAvoy star as a mother and daughter who find themselves competing for the attention of George, a handsome opportist (Lew Cody) who yearns to lay hands on the women’s $3 million fortune. Marie Prevost stars as George’s mistress, a sultry femme fatale who threatens to sabotage any romance that may transpire, further testing the strength of the primal mother/daughter relationship. Lavishly produced, Three Women became one of Warner Brothers’ most popular films of the 1924-25 season, and is presented in a 4K restoration performed by the George Eastman Museum, with an orchestral score by Andrew Earle Simpson.

Special features:
*4K restoration performed by the George Eastman Museum
*Audio commentary by film historian Anthony Slide
*Orchestral score by Andrew Earle Simpson

[Caligula]

Alex Ross, writing for New Yorker on Lubitsch

Edit: fixed the link

[4LOM]

Alex Ross, writing for New Yorker on Lubitsch

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[Caligula]

Apologies, fixed faulty link in post

[Red Screamer]

There's a fascinating new interview with Dave Kehr on the podcast How Would Lubitsch Do It?. He talks about Lady Windermere's Fan (which he placed on his 2022 Sight & Sound ballot) and the behind-the-scenes work on these silent restorations. When asked about home video releases of MoMA's Lubitsch silents (Rosita, The Marriage Circle, Forbidden Paradise, and Lady Windermere's Fan), he says this:

It's not easy. It would have been easier twenty years ago but the market has pretty much dried up. It's a very small group of hardcore collectors who are interested in these things. If we sold two or three thousand units of something like Rosita, I would be, happily, surprised...I'm still hoping to place a box set of our four Lubitschs with one of the DVD companies. Everyone's kind of interested but no one really wants to pull the trigger because it's not a moneymaker. I think it'll happen sooner or later.

[Matt]

TCM is showing So This is Paris late night Sunday the 22nd. It’s not listed as a premiere, but I don’t remember it ever airing before.

I hope you all got a chance to watch this on TCM or [HBO] Max. It is now no longer available on the latter and there is no physical release extant or announced.

[hearthesilence]

Arrrr.

[Matt]

Yeah, but no score if that matters. I often prefer silent films in…silence.

[Maltic]

Yeah, but no score if that matters. I often prefer silent films in…silence.

Me too, although live piano accompagnement can be fun (perhaps mostly if it's a film a know well already).

[Michael Kerpan]

The French play that this was credited as being based on is the very same one that was turned into Strauss's Die Fledermaus. But the music from that wouldn't be jazzy enough for THIS adaptation.

[hearthesilence]

To be fair, if you do end up relying on a rip of that link, it could give you the freedom to match up any score you want. Synch may not be perfect due to differences in transfers, but it could still be acceptable.

[Michael Kerpan]

Like Ozu's I Was Born But, I feel So This Is Paris often seems to have a pretty amazing "virtual soundtrack" that can be disrupted by poorly matched background music.

[domino harvey]

That Uncertain Feeling coming to Blu (complete with the usual VCI typo)

[soundchaser]

Probably Lubitsch’s worst sound film. Glad it won’t be lost to time, but don’t go in expecting a masterpiece, or even the typically enjoyable Lubitsch experience.

[therewillbeblus]

I think That Lady in Ermine is worse, but they’re both duds. I recall That Uncertain Feeling being more “watchable,” but in some ways it’s more frustrating because there’s a lot more potential in the material gone unrealised. So the first time through you’re seeing a decent set-up, moving towards the TV with a ‘maybe this time..’ and watching a missed goal on an empty net, over and over. I wonder how it’d play again with zero expectations, but I’d rather revisit all the brilliant stuff instead

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

Well, I like it!

[therewillbeblus]

I 'd be interested to know why!

[Matt]

I like it too. I think, as an independent production, it’s certainly more modestly scaled than most of his other sound films, and it’s definitely a step down from the Olympian heights of The Shop Around the Corner. But Oberon and Douglas are as charming as can be, and it has some very funny moments (“Egészségedre!”), running gags (“Keeks!”), and amusing commentary on psychoanalysis. To me it’s funnier than Cluny Brown and more coherent in tone than Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife.

I will admit that Burgess Meredith’s Alexander Sebastian might be one of Lubitsch’s most annoying characters, right up there with Miriam Hopkins’s in Design for Living.

[Michael Kerpan]

Wasn't Uncertain Feeling a re-make (of sorts) of one of his earlier (lost, I believe) silent films?

[domino harvey]

I found it sadly quite unfunny, but I will likely revisit with the new Blu-ray to see if my assessment has changed any. Of the Lubitsch sound films that retain his directorial credit, I’d agree it’s his worst

[Maltic]

Y'all may have noticed there's a very good podcast by Devan Scott which goes through Lubitsch chronologically, film-by-film.

https://www.movingimageagency.com/ernstcast/s5e04c

Recently The Shop Around the Corner, with Adrian Martin (a shame he hasn't gotten to do any Lubitsch BD commentaries). There's been two other episodes on this film.