"i have a confession to make to you, baron: you are a CROOK!": the ERNST LUBITSCH poll

i've only watched 2 lubitches so far, To Be Or Not To Be which i found to be the greatest comedy i've ever seen, and Heaven Can Wait, which i didn't like at all

That’s about right

ha, I like HCW okay, but it's definitely at the bottom of the list of the ones I've seen, p surprised it got even one vote in the thread poll.

TBONTB is amazing. Trouble in Paradise would probably be the consensus rec on what to watch next—and it's fantastic—but I might suggest Ninotchka or The Shop around the Corner instead.

Trouble in Paradise is super necessary. Shop Around the Corner is roughly comparable but less mannered.

Prefer The Shop but Trouble pretty good too.

Also Design for Living and Cluny Brown.

DFL is high on my list of need-to-rewatch; I think the premise misled me to expect something much wilder, so I wasn't sure what I thought of it the one time I saw it. I got Cluny Brown (and Holiday; #onethread) for xmas

Cluny Brown has long been a favorite. Charles Boyer handles pages and pages of English-in-every-sense dialogue like a pro.

Charles Boyer so good, but never got into that movie, sorry.

i fuggin LOVE cluny brown and i mention this at least once a year but jennifer jones in chirrupy mode is peak sexy in that film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6F9GQ3VlXw

The only films in which I can stand her are this, Beat the Devil, and Duel in the Sun, though I should watch Portrait of Jennie

Nuts to the squirrels!

Where do we stand on his Maurice Chevalier films? I've only seen The Smiling Lieutenant, which does have a bit of the touch, but I'm just not wild about the star's persona.

I really like a few of them.

Two with Jeanette MacDonald, One Hour With You and The Merry Widow, don’t think I’ve seen the others.

By which I mean The Love Parade and the non-Lubitsch Love Me Tonight.

He is really well-cast as a Lubitsch protagonist. He is also good in Lubitsch, um, disciple Billy Wilder’s Love in the Afternoon, although overall that film kind of bugs me.

Chevalier had one mode: chivalrous horndog. It works in his comedies, as long as you don't watch them too closely together. But it jars in Pièges, where he is supposed to be a suspect. (Stalker, yes, but sex murderer?)

The Lubitsch/Chevalier films I've seen are delightful. The MacDonald minus Chevalier film (Monte Carlo) slightly less so (Jack Buchanan comes off as more of a creep than an impish cad).

Really wish either that Trouble in Paradise and The Merry Widow were available on blu-ray or that I was less uptight about buying them as-is (as I know the b-r announcement will drop immediately after I buy a lower-fi copy, as always).

i find his musical stuff mostly unwatchable but that's more a personal prejudice than a critical judgment

This thread revive prompted us to watch Trouble in Paradise tonight, which I'd never seen. Total delight.

Unsurprisingly, Cluny Brown was completely brilliant. So many great lines that won't sound that funny written out: "if England must produce more Belinskis, then we shall produce more Belinskis" and everything Betty Cream says to the two young men in the party scene.

We'd watched Emma. (2020) the previous night, which made for an inadvertently well-programmed double bill about class in England (though perhaps inevitably due to their respective sources, the 1946 film is sharper than the 2020), not to mention that Bill Nighy would fit into CB seamlessly.

the HONORABLE Betty Cream, thanks.

Nice to watch Peter Lawford score with a comedic role perfectly in his range.

The dinner scene with the roast beef.

Belinksi bumping into Cluny and Wilson when out walking.

I mean, the staging and body language sez it all:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/aDVTQlr16EHcHHLytRF9DDq5xuxdV93T7c4Pnur0CxCtU1ZHxfjRuj6uTET9VXyyJBwgaZIVy0cfkAcUXUVWlHyVHEzE7Shc_CtDNrTXqluKF_e8dCJ9JVKCL-N6e89a

I know his rep but I don't think I'd previously seen Lawford in anything other than Advise & Consent, so he was a pleasant surprise.

Wilson was almost too effective as the pinched killjoy, spending entire minutes with his demonically mirthless family was a little rough, though I enjoyed the repeated gag of Boyer ringing the bell. Actually, all the recurring gags were good.

Great use of costuming in that still as well!

TCM premiere of So This Is Paris (1926), with a new score by Ben Model, tonight at 8pm EST. Be there or be dead to me.

Just saw Design for Living yesterday and it instantly became one of my all-time favorites. Practically perfect in every way. And with each additional Lubitsch film I see, he rises in the ranks of my all-time favorite directors.

Yes that one's a delight! Who woulda thought straight laced Gary Cooper was up to polyamorous shenanigans back in the day.

If the rumors are true, Cooper had a pretty lively private life.

More interesting to me right now:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/attachments/three-women-blueband-jpg.117875/

Three Women (1924) is good news by itself, but could "The Ernst Lubitsch Collection" mean more titles from this period--So This Is Paris? Forbidden Paradise?

his bel air estate is up for sale for the first time in over sixty years

https://www.elliman.com/california/sales/detail/512-l-564-81_22166811/268-bel-air-rd-bel-air-los-angeles-ca-90077

would that i had $20 million bcz holy damn

omg how beautiful

Marvelling at that 5 bedroom : 8 bathroom ratio

Her husband is that great, great Polish actor, Joseph Tura. You’ve probably heard of him.

_That Uncertain Feeling_ may be minor Lubitsch, but high marks to Burgess Meredith as an egomaniacal pianist whose idea of kicking off roleplay sex with Merle Oberon is bellowing "I AM WOTAN AND I HAVE COME TO EARTH!"

Keeks!

Dahling, why do you pinch my side and say “keeks”?

Keeks just keep getting harder to find.

For those not allergic to podcasts, this is a fun listen:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-would-lubitsch-do-it/id1656845615

Just noticed that That Uncertain Feeling was made between two of his biggest classics, The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not to Be.

I've hesitated. Merle Oberon and Melvyn Douglas are not my beau ideal of a magical pairing.

it's a light watch

It’s worth seeing, ever if not top-tier Lubitsch as everyone acknowledges. And yeah, the fundamental triangle is flawed, there is more chemistry between Melvyn Douglas and Eve Arden than between him and Merle Oberon and her role in the end is unsympathetic, but her performance and presence are fine. Burgess Meredith character ultimately unlikable but still funny. There’s an amusing little bit by Sig Ruman as Mr. Kafka, the film could have used more of him. Despite all these caveats would watch again.

I think it’s easy to watch too since, if I read correctly, the copyright paperwork was damaged or lost at sea and, because the film was such a flop Lubitsch’s production partner didn’t want to bother to pay the $19.99 to refile so it is in the public domain.

$28.76. In England. Maybe it is actually copyrighted in the US.

I'd have voted for Cluny Brown today without hesitation. Its script, rhythm, Boyer, supporting cast -- perfect.

Watched TROUBLE IN PARADISE the other night. Amazing. I feel like so many facets of this film were light years ahead, the timing and the acting and the writing and quite frequently the camerawork. The theft, the meeting of Gaston and Lily, the bewildered recollection is the theft, Gaston and Lily realizing just who the other really is...that whole opening stretch is A++ (the rest of the film vacillates between A and A+ for me.)

Design For Living is next up.

I just watched both of those for the first time on Criterion. I am now completely smitten with Miriam Hopkins.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/47/73/72/477372e8d0a225cd436a903e65c060ad.gif

Expiring soon, no?