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

For my 23rd E.L. film, a sorta reverse Taming of the Shrew, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife. Solid, funny second-tier Lubitsch, written by Wilder and Brackett.

Gary Cooper is much funnier with Ernst than with Capra, and Claudette Colbert pulls off one of those impossible good-natured wife-as-avenger roles. Very screwball: there's an early confrontation between Edw Ev Horton and Franklin Pangborn! Young David Niven surprisingly well-fit in a supporting schlemiel role.

http://www.rowthree.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Bluebeards-Eighth-Wife.jpg

The Oyster Princess is probably the funniest of his silents that I've seen, with spatial gags and knockout, staircase-laden sets that reminded me of... Jerry Lewis! A must-see (on Kino disc).

http://deeperintomovies.net/journal/image11/oysterprincess2.jpg

http://deeperintomovies.net/journal/archives/6520

wow that looks great, some amazing shots in that link

The Oyster Princess seconded.

new bio by Joseph McBride

Everything is explained, every rabbit hole is excavated; virtually every film given what in some other book would be a casual mention is examined here in Talmudic detail. If you think, “I wish I knew more about that” about a movie or star, read on; you will. (His treatment of Mary Pickford’s possible anti-Semitic loathing of Lubitsch, and their collaboration on 1923’s “Rosita,” is a good example of exhaustive exploration.) But he also makes us believe Lubitsch deserves it, as do his evergreen films.

https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2018/08/31/director-who-defined-classic-hollywood

Oh, this is excellent news - I absolutely adored his Capra biog back when I was in college

that was a massive one; i never finished it.

There have been some other Lubitsch books over the years but don’t recall a really good one so looking forward to this.

I am only now, at last, watching a Lubitsch film ("Trouble In Paradise") for the first time and I'm thinking, "Uh oh. New favorite."

have McBride book from library

The full schedule for To Save and Project, MoMA's annual festival of film preservation, is now on line! We open with the premiere of our own restoration of Ernst Lubitsch's FORBIDDEN PARADISE! https://t.co/J066veI356 pic.twitter.com/L3dATE6QzB

— MoMA Film (@MoMAFilm) December 13, 2018

Pola Negri is quite the spitfire in Wildcat.

Just watched Cluny Brown, and it is great fun - Jennifer Jones is wonderful in it

Just watched her firstborn do an interpretive dance in Easy Rider

Is that the daughter who committed suicide?

No, Robert Walker Jr., but that was a good question

The scene where Mr. Matuschek quietly, in an attempt to salvage his dignity, hangs around the shop hoping one of his employees invites him home for Christmas Eve is so perfectly paced that I convulse.

So much stuff in that so well done. Maybe I already commented on it up thread, but I love the scene where the big display pile of boxes gets knocked over, there is stillness for a beat or two, and then they all scramble to restack them.

Like, yes, all these people actually work in this place. Which I dunno when else I have ever thought that, maybe The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

I've been watching the shit out of Lubitsch lately (from the beginning of his talkie career, mostly in order). He's delightful and a new favorite. The Eclipse set of his musicals is one of the best Criterion purchases I've made in a while. Gonna watch Shop Around the Corner for the first time at some point over the next couple of days.

Yes that Eclipse thing is good

Watching Shop Around the Corner tonight, love it forever & always

how much is that belt in the window? the one that says $2.95?

...it’s 2.95

oh no...

Like, yes, all these people actually work in this place.

Exactly this. Matuschek's combination of solicitude and distance -- he knows just enough about Flora living with her mother and no more and doesn't wanna know -- is exactly how bosses are.

The only dud: the actor playing Pepi is straight out of MGM overemoting.

i still like when he gives Mrs Matuschek the business over the phone though

Eh, I like Pepi. I always suspect he's off to pick up a prostitute at the end of the film, but maybe I'm reading it wrong.

He is!

I like when he mutters to Rudi, "Too much. "

yes! love that

It’s true that Pepi seems to be phoning in from a different movie, as Alfred suggests, but I don’t mind him.

he's the comic relief to a comedy!
died super young

Will have to look that up. Also, what's the deal with Schildkraut again, I forget.

He played Dreyfus!

Shop was great! Positively chaste, though, compared to the endless sexcapades I've grown accustomed to in Lubitsch's pre-Code work. I'm kinda just letting it settle over me at the moment but I can see why it's a perennial holiday favorite.

The quaver in Sullavan's voice is sex.

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.