Ernst Lubitsch

[DevanAGScott]

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.

Poking my head out from my usual years-long stints of lurking here to say that it's incredibly gratifying to see folks posting about it here!

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

It's really cool to see there's an episode with Whit Stillman so this series is quite the surprising treat.

[Maltic]

Griffin Newman was also a good fit. Doing a Blank Check Lubitsch series would probably be pushing the envelope with their audience.

Great guests all around, and Devan does a fine job with them.

Another podcast in this vein is Foreign Correspondents, a series on Hitchcock by two Poles (one of them BD extras wizard and MichaelB collaborator Michal Oleszczyk).

[Stefan Andersson]

Original music for Sumurun rediscovered:
https://www.burkhard-goetze.eu/wiederentdeckt-sumurun/
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/die- ... 24892.html
https://www.stummfilm-magazin.de/aktuel ... d-goetze-1

[Stefan Andersson]

Details on a variant cut of "Old Heidelberg", called "The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg":
https://therealmofsilence.com/2025/07/0 ... ince-1927/ -see July 9, 2025 post

This cut is housed at MoMA and is apparently a later general release version. It has location footage of Heidelberg, Germany, retakes of shots featuring Norma Shearer, and is edited differently.

[domino harvey]

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

Revisited this via the VCI Blu-ray and it’s sadly as awful as u remembered it, maybe even worse. The film is impressively unfunny, with setup after setup failing with spectacular efficiency. It’s like someone wrote a great comic script and then took out every last punchline, every payoff, every witticism and quip. It’s a Wikipedia summary in motion. Somehow this was written by the same co-author of Cukor’s Holiday and the Women, so we know who wasn’t primarily responsible for those great scripts… I’ve liked all of the main cast in other projects but there is nothing at all they can do here, and poor Burgess Meredith in particular is stuck with a vigorously unpleasant caricature (posited: this is one of the top five most obnoxious characters in film history). And what’s with Lubitsch thinking “Phooey” is funny? It’s the only part of Trouble in Paradise that ages it, and he leans even harder into it here where it becomes a regrettable running joke (if you can call it that)

As for the Blu-ray, it is abysmal. I am not one of the pixel peepers but this is bad by even my relaxed standards. Oddly, one of the extras is a colorized Daffy Duck cartoon about divorce, which I assume somehow fell into the public domain

[JSC]

And oddly comes between two of his best films (The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not to Be).

[Drucker]

Isn't there a moment in the film where he says "hail Hitler"? I saw it at Film Forum and remember laughing a bunch but I remember little else about it.

[domino harvey]

Douglas “heils” himself in third person

[Drucker]

Right, I can just flip a page back to capture my old thoughts.

That Uncertain Feeling is an absolute gem. The film is incredibly well-focused, and unlike Cluny Brown or some of his other films, the plot kicks in pretty immediately, with a wife bored from an inattentive husband, and her falling for someone else. Melvyn Douglass is spectacular as usual, but really puts in an amazing performance here. His tone shifts from aloof to arrogant to deranged and carefree, and he pulls it off marvelously. One moment he's weeping as he's unable to part in his marriage, and the next he's pulling off hijinx in order to win her back. There are lots of touches of real black comedy here, including an absolute gasp-worthy moment

Spoiler

when Douglas does a sarcastic Heil Hitler, which comes out of nowhere, but I found it even more shocking and showstopping than the famous line about Shakesepeare and Warsaw (I think?) in To Be Or Not To Be.

Looks like we saw different films, though I can hardly remember either of these films. I'll just have to say generally for my taste I have a tendency to prefer the mean-spiritedness in classic comedy (Unfaithfully Yours being my favorite Struges) and I'm sure that's what I enjoyed about Uncertain Feeling, as opposed to Cluny Brown which probably had fewer laugh out loud moments. I'm due to revisit them both, surely. I've become a little softer in the time since writing those reviews, maybe my mind has changed.

[FrauBlucher]

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

Revisited this via the VCI Blu-ray and it’s sadly as awful as u remembered it, maybe even worse. The film is impressively unfunny, with setup after setup failing with spectacular efficiency. It’s like someone wrote a great comic script and then took out every last punchline, every payoff, every witticism and quip. It’s a Wikipedia summary in motion. Somehow this was written by the same co-author of Cukor’s Holiday and the Women, so we know who wasn’t primarily responsible for those great scripts… I’ve liked all of the main cast in other projects but there is nothing at all they can do here, and poor Burgess Meredith in particular is stuck with a vigorously unpleasant caricature (posited: this is one of the top five most obnoxious characters in film history). And what’s with Lubitsch thinking “Phooey” is funny? It’s the only part of Trouble in Paradise that ages it, and he leans even harder into it here where it becomes a regrettable running joke (if you can call it that)

As for the Blu-ray, it is abysmal. I am not one of the pixel peepers but this is bad by even my relaxed standards. Oddly, one of the extras is a colorized Daffy Duck cartoon about divorce, which I assume somehow fell into the public domain

This will be on TCM December 17, 1:45AM

[Michael Kerpan]

That Uncertain Feeling was a remake of the lost (negative deliberately "junked") silent Kiss Me Again -- which sounds like it would have been more fun to watch (given its cast -- Marie Prevost, Monte Blue, and Clara Bow).

[therewillbeblus]

I finally got around to The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg and it exceeded my expectations in every way. I had heard that this wasn't a very 'funny' Lubitsch, but I found the first half hysterical, demonstrating a dry wit amongst the most humorous of his works. Jean Hersholt is brilliant at physical comedy, and Ramon Novarro's deadpan disposition looks a bit like Buster Keaton, though he quietly moves you with minute expressions in the film's more dramatic moments. This also might be the most romantic film of his I've seen yet, setting the stage for so many tragic tales of its ilk to come. Norma Shearer is a delight, and her chemistry with Novarro's prince feels both organic and authentic. Their boat ride - when everything shifts from sublime to devastating in an instant of revelation - is captured with such grace that stops your breath. This, too, is a great example of why silent films can be preferable over sound - a lot of the dialog isn't transcribed, because it doesn't matter compared to the love being communicated nonverbally... I loved how Lubitsch used restraint here, and simultaneously contributed to his themes by excising the trivial in favor of the significant.

I was deeply inspired by this love story, and it immediately rose to the crowded club of the best of Lubitsch for me. It's a shame this has no physical release yet. Also watched with no sound, and found that to be an extremely peaceful experience, likely inciting more laughter than if there was a score provoking gags

[Michael Kerpan]

I also can't believe this has no modern home video release. (I bet it came out on VHS long long ago -- but that wouldn't really count).

[Roger Ryan]

I finally got around to The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg...

There is an alternative version recently re-discovered which has a better picture quality but appears to contain re-shot footage filmed after Lubitsch was removed/left the production. In short, the re-discovered version contains new establishing shots filmed in Germany (which Lubitsch wanted) instead of generic shots filmed in Los Angeles, but also contains numerous close-ups of Norma Shearer apparently shot after principal photography was completed to emphasize emotional beats that Lubitsch preferred not to emphasize. Other differences appear as well. It is thought that the version with the additional close-ups may have been the version that received a wide release in 1927 but the earlier version (closer to Lubitsch's intentions) ended up being the one championed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill and the one most widely seen today. The easiest way to identify the two versions is the earlier one's title card calls the film "Old Heidelberg" while the reworked one uses the full name "The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg".

[therewillbeblus]

Interesting footnotes on the two versions - I noticed that my copy was titled "Old Heidelberg" instead of the longer title, and had to check to make sure it was the correct film! I opted to view the restored version (without knowing about the history or differences) because of the bump in picture quality, but I may have to return to the original cut next time just to see if there are that many changes between them. Shearer does get a lot of close-ups (as does Novarro).. surely these can't all be add-ons?

[TechnicolorAcid]

I finally got around to The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg and it exceeded my expectations in every way. I had heard that this wasn't a very 'funny' Lubitsch, but I found the first half hysterical, demonstrating a dry wit amongst the most humorous of his works. Jean Hersholt is brilliant at physical comedy, and Ramon Novarro's deadpan disposition looks a bit like Buster Keaton, though he quietly moves you with minute expressions in the film's more dramatic moments. This also might be the most romantic film of his I've seen yet, setting the stage for so many tragic tales of its ilk to come. Norma Shearer is a delight, and her chemistry with Novarro's prince feels both organic and authentic. Their boat ride - when everything shifts from sublime to devastating in an instant of revelation - is captured with such grace that stops your breath. This, too, is a great example of why silent films can be preferable over sound - a lot of the dialog isn't transcribed, because it doesn't matter compared to the love being communicated nonverbally... I loved how Lubitsch used restraint here, and simultaneously contributed to his themes by excising the trivial in favor of the significant.

I was deeply inspired by this love story, and it immediately rose to the crowded club of the best of Lubitsch for me. It's a shame this has no physical release yet. Also watched with no sound, and found that to be an extremely peaceful experience, likely inciting more laughter than if there was a score provoking gags

Thanks TWBB for putting this on my radar because it similarly has risen to being one of my favorite Lubitsches, and for roughly the first hour, easily his most entertaining as Lubitsch drift his camera across wide tracking shots with a breathless gleeful tone paired with some of his most beautiful imagery (the scene between Shearer and Novarro in a field of flowers tinted blue is probably Lubitsch’s most stunning image). Navarro’s comedic chops here are immaculate as he plays a very dorky, lovable outsider brought into this town in a manner that reminded a lot of Harold Lloyd’s performances but the supporting cast is incredible too; at one point there’s a drunk soldier who stumbles into Navarro’s room that had made in absolute tears with his facial expressions.

But then the second half hits and I think this where the movie really cemented itself as one of Lubitsch’s best because while Lubitsch is consistently able to balance light comedy with devastating emotional pathos (case in point: Cluny Brown), the way Lubitsch creates such an aching and bittersweet in Navarro’s return trip to Heidelberg is nothing short of masterful. I think the consistently excellent score that was on my copy was a key factor in this too and I wouldn’t be shocked if was the one Carl Davis did for it (the uploader doesn’t mention it unfortunately) and would also be my preference for anyone who wants to view this, which you should because it’s incredible.

[Stefan Andersson]

Die Augen der Mumie Mâ, restored by Deutsche Kinemathek; see the first 5 minutes here, including restoration info:
https://www.filmportal.de/node/45725/video/2238779

https://www.stummfilm-magazin.de/termin ... pola-negri
https://www.arabesques-hamburg.de/festi ... ise-bolte/

[Stefan Andersson]

Old Heidelberg discussion:
https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=38341

[Stefan Andersson]

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg:
"Preserved and restored by The Museum of Modern Art. World premiere of MoMA restoration. 105 min."
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11559

[Tuco]

SO THIS IS PARIS was shown at the recent San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Wonderful accompaniment by Steven Horne (piano) and Frank Bokius (percussion). The audience was, as they say, in stitches. 35mm print from the Library of Congress looked pretty good - here's hoping it finds its way to disc.
The film is available on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D_YsyxDjyk...but unfortunately, no music.

[Lowry_Sam]

I’d love to see a box of his Hollywood silents. It’s probably more likely though that we get them individually at a glacial pace unfortunately.

[Michael Kerpan]

So This Is Paris -- like Ozu's I Was Born But -- has a very lively and noisy "implied" soundtrack that can get lost with extraneous musical accompaniment (even if quite decent).

[Stefan Andersson]

"The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) /.../ restored to /.../ original domestic theatrical release cut /..../ with MoMA’s print of The Student Prince recently discovered to be the sole remaining copy of the cut shown to audiences in 1927."
https://press.moma.org/film-media/smw2026/