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Online versions of the Goldenrod Handouts have color images August 30, 2016 (XXXIII:1) http://csac.buffalo.edu/goldenrodhandouts.html , TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932, 83 min)

Trouble in Paradise (1932), 83 minutes

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch Writing Credits (screenplay), Grover Jones, (adaptation), Aladar Laszlo (play as Laszlo Aladar) Produced Ernst Lubitsch Music W. Franke Harling Cinematography Art Direction Costume Design …(gowns) Costume and Wardrobe Department Eugene Joseff…costume jeweler (uncredited)

Cast …Lily …Madame Mariette Colet …Gaston Monescu Charles Ruggles…The Major historical drama. His success in Europe brought him to the shores Edward Everett Horton…François Filiba of America to promote The Loves of Pharaoh (1922) and he C. Aubrey Smith…Adolph J. Giron become acquainted with the thriving US film industry. He soon Robert Greig…Jacques, Mariette's Butler returned to Europe, but came back to the US for good to direct new friend and influential star in his first Ernst Lubitsch (b. January 29, 1892 in Berlin, Germany—d. American hit, Rosita (1923). (1924) began November 30, 1947, age 55, in , California) who Lubitsch's unprecedented run of sophisticated films that mirrored Entertainment Weekly voted the 16th Greatest Director of all the American scene (though always relocated to foreign or time, decided at age 16 to leave school and pursue a career on imaginary lands) and all its skewed panorama of the human the stage. He had to compromise with his father and keep the condition. There was a mix of pioneering musical films and some account books for the family tailor business while he acted in drama also through the . The of those films resulted in cabarets and music halls at night. In 1911 he joined the Paramount making him its production chief in 1935, so he could Deutsches Theater of famous director/producer/impresario Max produce his own films and supervise production of others. In Reinhardt, and was able to move up to leading acting roles in a 1938 he signed a three-year contract with Twentieth Century- short time. He took an extra job as a handyman while learning Fox. He moved to MGM, where he directed and acting at Berlin's Bioscope film studios. The next year in (1939), a fast-paced comedy of he launched his own film career by appearing in a series of "decadent" Westerners meeting Soviet "comrades" who were comedies showcasing traditional ethnic Jewish slice-of-life fare. seeking more of life than the mother country could—or would— Finding great success in these character roles, Lubitsch turned to offer. During the war he directed perhaps his most beloved broader comedy, then beginning in 1914 started writing and comedy--controversial to say the least, dark in a tongue-in-cheek directing his own films. His breakthrough film came in 1918 sort of way--but certainly a razor-sharp tour de force in smart, with The Eyes of the Mummy, a tragedy starring future precise dialog, staging and story: To Be or Not to Be (1942). Hollywood star . Also that year he made (1918), again Lubitsch had a massive heart attack in 1943 after having signed a with Negri, a film that was commercially successful on the producer/director's contract with 20th Century-Fox earlier that international level. His work already showed his genius for year, but completed Heaven Can Wait (1943). His continued catching the eye as well as the ear in not only comedy but efforts in film were severely stymied but he worked as he could. Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—2

In late 1944 Otto Preminger, another disciple of Reinhardt's displayed a talent that had all the earmarks of stardom. She was Viennese theater work, took over the direction of A Royal to finish out the year by playing Ivy Pearson in Dr. Jekyll and Scandal (1945), with Lubitsch credited as nominal producer. Mr. Hyde (1931). In Two Kinds of Women (1932) directed by March of 1947, the year of his passing, brought a special William C. de Mille, Miriam once again performed Academy Award (he was nominated three times) to the fading magnificently. Later that year she played Lily Vautier in the producer/director for his "25-year contribution to motion sophisticated comedy Trouble in Paradise (1932). A film that pictures." At his funeral, two of his fellow directorial émigrés should have been nominated for an Academy Award, it has from Germany put his epitaph succinctly as they left. Billy lasted through the years as a masterpiece in comedy - even today, Wilder (who considered Lubitsch his favorite director) noted, film buffs and historians rave about it. Miriam's brilliant "No more Lubitsch." answered, "Worse than performance in Design for Living (1933) propelled her to the top that—no more Lubitsch films." Some of his additional 76 of Paramount's salary scale. Later that year, Miriam played the directed films include (1948), Cluny Brown title role in The Story of Temple Drake (1933). Paramount was (1946), That Uncertain Feeling (1941), The Shop Around the forced to tone down the film's violence and character being raped Corner (1940), Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938), The Merry to pass they Hayes Office code. Despite being watered down, it Widow (1934), Design for Living (1933), Trouble in Paradise was still a box-office smash. Soon, the country was abuzz as to (1932), who would play Scarlett (1932), The Smiling O'Hara in Margaret Lieutenant (1931), The Mitchell's Gone with the Patriot (1928), The Student Wind (1939). Miriam Prince in Old Heidelberg wanted the coveted spot (1927), Lady Windermere's especially since she was a Fan (1925), Der gemischte Southern lady and Georgia Frauenchor (1916) and native. She is actually Fräulein Seifenschaum portrayed by Sheilah Wells (1914). He also has 43 in The Scarlett O'Hara War acting credits, as well as 29 (1980), a film that looks at writer credits. His written the cut-throat casting for work includes To Be or Not the film. By the late ‘30s, to Be (1943, story - film roles slowed down and uncredited), Here Is Miriam found herself Germany (1945, returning to the stage. She documentary, story made two films in 1940, preparation), To Be or Not to none in 1941, and one in Be (1942, original story - 1942 and 1943, uncredited), The Merry respectively. The stage was Widow (1934, contributing writer - uncredited), If I Had a her work now. However in 1949, she received the role of Lavinia Million (1932), The Smiling Lieutenant (1931, uncredited), Penniman in The Heiress (1949). Miriam made only three films Romeo und Julia im Schnee (1920, screenplay & story), I Don't in the 1950's, but she had begun making appearances on Want to Be a Man (1918, writer), When Four Do the Same television programs. Miriam made her final big screen (1917, Short), Zucker und Zimmt (1915) and Fräulein appearance in Savage Intruder (1970). In July, 1972, despite Seifenschaum (1914). concerns about her health and a premonition that she shouldn't travel, she flew to New York to attend the special screening of Miriam Hopkins (b. Ellen Miriam Hopkins October 18, 1902 in Story of Temple Drake celebrating the 60th anniversary of Savannah, Georgia—d. October 9, 1972, age 69, in New York , followed by a gala party in her honor at the City, New York) came from a wealthy family and initially Museum of Modern Art. Just as she had feared, she suffered a studied ance in New York , she received her first taste of show major heart attack and died in her hotel suite before getting back business as a chorus girl at twenty. She appeared in local to her California home. She acted in 52 film and television roles, musicals before she began expanding her horizons by trying out some of which are Savage Intruder (1970), The Flying Nun dramatic roles four years later. By 1928, Miriam was appearing (1969, TV Series), The Chase (1966), Russ Meyer's Fanny Hill in stock companies on the East Coast and her reviews were (1964), The Outer Limits (1964, TV Series), Route 66 (1963, TV getting better after having been vilified earlier in her career. In Series), (1954-1962, TV Series), The 1930, Miriam decided to try the silver screen and signed with Children's Hour (1961), The Investigators (1961, TV Series), Paramount Studios. Since she was already established on Play of the Week (1961, TV Series), Climax! (1957, TV Series), Broadway, Paramount felt they were getting a seasoned Studio One in Hollywood (1955, V Series), The Ray Milland performer after the rave reviews she had received on Broadway. Show (1955, TV Series), (1951-1955, TV Her first role was in Fast and Loose (1930). The role, where Series), The Whistler (1954, TV Series), The Philip Morris Miriam played a rebellious girl, was a good start. After appearing Playhouse (1953, TV Series), Curtain Call (1952, TV Series) , in 24 Hours (1931), where she is killed by her husband, Miriam Carrie (1952), The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1952), Pulitzer Prize played Princess Anna in The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) opposite Playhouse (1951, TV Series), The Mating Season (1951), The . Still considered a newcomer, Miriam Chevrolet Tele-Theatre (1949, TV Series), Hart to Heart (1949), Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—3

The Heiress (1943), Old Acquaintance (1943), A Gentleman return to stage work, acting in stock before retiring After Dark (1942), Lady with Red Hair (1940), Virginia City permanently in 1952. She spent the remainder of her life in (1940), The Old Maid (1939), Wise Girl (1937), Woman Chases virtual seclusion in New York and in her estate near Falmouth, Man (1937), The Woman I Love (1937), Men Are Not Gods Cape Cod. Her surviving personal papers are accessible at the (1936), These Three (1936), Splendor (1935), Barbary Coast Wesleyan University Cinema Archives. Francis’s acting work (1935), Becky Sharp (1935), The Richest Girl in the World includes Lux Video Theatre (1951, TV Series), The Prudential (1934), She Loves Me Not (1934), All of Me (1934), Design for Family Playhouse (1950, TV Series), Wife Wanted (1946, Living (1933), The Stranger's Return (1933), The Story of Allotment Wives (1945), Divorce (1945), Temple Drake (1933), Trouble in Paradise (1932), World and (1944), Between Us Girls (1942, Always in My Heart (1942), The the Flesh (1932), Dancers in the Dark (1932), Two Kinds of Feminine Touch (1941), Charley's Aunt (1941), The Man Who Women (1932), Dr. Jekyll and Lost Himself (1941), Play Girl Mr. Hyde (1931), 24 Hours (1941), Little Men (1940), When (1931), The Smiling Lieutenant the Daltons Rode (1940), It's a (1931), Fast and Loose (1930) Date (1940), and The Home Girl (1928). (1939), (1939), King of the Underworld Kay Francis (b. January 13, (1939), 1905 in Oklahoma City, (1938), Secrets of an Actress Oklahoma—d. August 26, (1938), (1938), Women 1968 (age 63) in New York Are Like That (1938), First Lady City, New York) is possibly the (1937), Confession (1937), biggest of the 'forgotten stars' Another Dawn (1937), Stolen from Hollywood's Golden Era, Holiday (1937), Give Me Your yet, for a while in the 1930s, Heart (1936), The White Angel she ranked as one of the most (1936), I Found Stella Parish popular actresses, tagged the (1935), The Goose and the 'Queen of Warner Brothers', by Gander (1935), Stranded (1935), 1935 earning a yearly salary of Living on Velvet (1935), British $115,000 (compared to Bette Agent (1934), Dr. Monica Davis with $18,000). Kay did (1934), (1934), not start her working life in Mandalay (1934), The House on show business but sold real 56th Street (1933), I Loved a estate and arranged extravagant Woman (1933), Mary Stevens, parties for wealthy socialites. M.D. (1933), Storm at Daybreak Her first acting job was in a (1933), (1933), modernized version of '' Cynara (1932), Trouble in (as the Player Queen) in 1925. Paradise (1932), One Way She appeared as Marjorie Grey Passage (1932), in the melodrama "Crime" (1932), Street of Women (1932), (1927) and in the (1932), Strangers play "Elmer the Great" (1928), produced by George M. Cohan in Love (1932, The False Madonna (1931), Girls About Town and starring as Elmer Kane. On the strength of her (1931), 24 Hours (1931), Guilty Hands (1931), Transgression stage work, Kay was screen-tested by Paramount and (1931), The Vice Squad (1931), Ladies' Man (1931), Scandal subsequently offered a contract (1929-31). A brief affair in 1928 Sheet (1931), Passion Flower (1930), (1930), with writer/director may also have been a Galas de la Paramount (1930), Let's Go Native (1930), Raffles contributing factor. She had a bit in the first Marx Brothers (1930), For the Defense Street of Chance (1930), Behind the outing, (1929), and then graduated to playing Make-Up (1930), (1929), Illusion sophisticated seductresses opposite stars like and (1929), Dangerous Curves (1929), Gentlemen of the Press . She appeared in the Lubitsch comedy Trouble in (1929) and The Cocoanuts (1929). Paradise (1932), though unhappy about being billed below Miriam Hopkins in the picture. Francis also had a noticeable lisp, Herbert Marshall (b. May 23, 1890 in , England—d. which was not a factor in the early years of her casting. Yet, a January 22, 1966, age 75, in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, money dispute with Warner Brothers caused them to find her California) trained to become a certified accountant, but his ‘difficult’ and give her less A-list work (some argue they interest turned to the stage. He lost a leg while serving in World specifically choice roles that would be hard for her to War I, he was rehabilitated with a wooden leg. This did not stop annunciate). Though she still managed to give several good him from making good his decision to make the stage as his performances, the writing was on the wall. By the end of the vocation. He used a very deliberate square-shouldered and decade, the 'Queen of Warner Brothers' mantle had passed on to guided walk—largely unnoticeable—to cover up his disability. . During the mid-, Kay co-produced several B- His wonderful mellow, baritone British accent rolled out with a movies as vehicles for herself at Monogram, then made a brief minimum of mouth movement and a nonchalant ease that stood Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—4 out as unique. His rather blasé demeanor could take on various (1940), Zaza (1938), Always Goodbye (1938), Woman Against nuances - without overt emotion - to fit any role he played, Woman (1938), Mad About Music (1938), Breakfast for Two whether sophisticated comedy or drama - and the accent fit just (1937), Angel (1937), Make Way for a Lady (1936), A Woman as well. He filled the range from romantic lead, with several Rebels (1936), Girls' Dormitory (1936), Forgotten Faces (1936), sympathetic strangers thrown in, to dignified military officer to Till We Meet Again (1936), The Lady Consents (1936), If You doctor to various degrees of villainy. He was almost 40 when he Could Only Cook (1935), The Dark Angel (1935), Accent on appeared in his first picture in Hollywood, (1929), a Youth (1935), The Flame Within (1935, The Good Fairy (1935), worthwhile comparison with the more famous second version Painted Veil (1934), (1934), Riptide (1934), Four [The Letter (1940)] with Bette Davis. Perhaps his best suave Frightened People (1934), The Solitaire Man (1933), I Was a comedic role was in Trouble in Paradise (1932), the first non- Spy (1933), Evenings for Sale (1932), Trouble in Paradise musical sound comedy by producer/director Ernst Lubitsch - to (1932), Blonde Venus (1932). Faithful Hearts (1932), Michael some, Lubitsch's greatest film. That same year, Marshall did one and Mary (1931), Bachelor's Folly (1931), Secrets of a Secretary of his most warmly human, romantic roles in the marvelously (1931), Murder! (1930), The Letter (1929) and Mumsie (1927). erotic Blonde Venus (1932), with the captivating . By the 50s, Marshall was doing fewer movies, but still Charles Ruggles (b. February 8, 1886 in Los Angeles, a variety. His voice was perfect to lend credence to some early California—d. December 23, 1970, age 84, in Hollywood, sci-fi classics like Riders to the Stars (1954) and Gog (1954) and California) had one of the longest careers in Hollywood, lasting the The Fly (1958). But he was also busy honing his considerable more than 50 years and encompassing more than 100 films. He talent with various early-TV playhouse programs. He also fit made his film debut in 1914 in The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) comfortably into episodic TV including a rare five-episode run as and worked steadily after that. He was memorably paired with a priest on 77 Sunset Strip (1958). His 91 film and television Mary Boland in a series of comedies in the early 1930s, and was series included The Third Day (1965), 77 Sunset Strip (1963, TV one of the standouts in the all-star comedy Series), The Caretakers (1963), The List of Adrian Messenger (1932), as a harried, much-put-upon man who finally goes (1963), Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962), Zane Grey Theater berserk in a china shop. Ruggles' slight stature and distinctive (1961, TV Series), A Fever in the Blood (1961), Michael Shayne mannerisms - his fluttery, jumpy manner of speaking, his often (1961, TV Series), Hong Kong (1960, TV Series), Midnight Lace befuddled look whenever events seemed about to overwhelm (1960), College him, which was often - Confidential (1960), endeared him to Adventures in Paradise generations of (1960, TV Series), The Fly moviegoers. Memorable (1958), as Maj. Applegate the Presents (1957-1958, TV big-game hunter in the Series), Stage Struck classic screwball (1958), Studio One in comedy Bringing Up Hollywood (1958, TV Baby (1938). Many will Series), Playhouse 90 remember him as the (1957, TV Series), The narrator of the "Aesop's Show Fables" segment of the (1957, TV Series), Lux animated cartoon The Video Theatre (1954- Bullwinkle Show (1960). 1956, TV Series), The He acted in over 150 Weapon (1956), Wicked as films and television They Come (1956), series, some of which Celebrity Playhouse (TV are Aesop & Son (1976, Series), The Virgin Queen TV Series), The Danny (1955), The Elgin Hour (1954, TV Series), Thomas Hour (1968, TV Series), Carousel (1967, TV Movie), (1954, TV Series), The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), Gog Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1966, TV Series), The Beverly (1954), Riders to the Stars (1954), Angel Face (1952), The Ford Hillbillies (1965-1966, TV Series), Pistols 'n' Petticoats (1966, Television Theatre (1952, TV Series), Robert Montgomery TV Series), Bonanza (1966, TV Series), Follow Me, Boys! Presents (1951, TV Series), Anne of the Indies (1951), Captain (1966), Laredo (1966, TV Series), Bewitched (1964-1965, TV Blackjack (1950), Nash Airflyte Theatre (1950, TV Series), The Series), The Munsters (1965, TV Series), The Andy Griffith Show Underworld Story (1950), The Secret Garden (1949), (1965, TV Series), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1965, TV Series), (1947), Ivy (1947), Duel in the Sun (1946), Monuments of the Wagon Train (1965, TV Series), My Living Doll (1964, TV Past (1946), The Razor's Edge (1946), Crack-Up (1946), The Series), Burke's Law (1963-1964, TV Series), I'd Rather Be Rich Unseen (1945), The Enchanted Cottage (1945), Andy Hardy's (1964), The Theatre (1962-1963, TV Series), Papa's Blonde Trouble (1944), Young Ideas (1943), Delicate Condition (1963), McKeever & the Colonel (1963, TV (1943), Forever and a Day (1943), The Moon and Sixpence Series), The Red Skelton Hour (1957-1962, TV Series), The Real (1942), Kathleen (1941), When Ladies Meet (1941), The Little McCoys (1961, TV Series), The Parent Trap (1961, The Pleasure Foxes (1941), Adventure in Washington (1941), The Letter of His Company (1961), The Chevy Show (1961, (1940), Foreign Correspondent (1940), A Bill of Divorcement TV Series), All in a Night's Work (1961), The Jim Backus Show Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—5

(1960, TV Series), The Best of the Post (1960, TV Series), he narrated the "Fractured Fairy Tales" segment, as well as Goodyear Theatre (1960, TV Series), Father Knows Best (1960, playing multiple characters in various supporting features of the TV Series), Once Upon a Christmas Time (1959, TV Movie), The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. His acting credit include The Studio One in Hollywood (1954-1958, TV Series), The Life of Governor & J.J. (1970, TV Series), Nanny and the Professor Riley (1958, TV Series), Playhouse 90 (1956-1958, TV Series), (1970, TV Series), Love, American Style (1970, TV Series), The Matinee Theatre (1956-1957, TV Series), The United States Steel Name of the Game (1970, TV Series), 2000 Years Later (1969), Hour (1954-1957, TV Series), Climax! (1957, TV Series), It Takes a Thief (1969, TV Series), The Perils of Pauline (1967), Conflict (1954-1956, TV Series), The Motorola Television Hour Batman (1966, TV Series), Camp Runamuck (1965, TV Series), (1954, TV Series), The World of Mr. Sweeney (1954, TV Series), F Troop (1965, TV Series), Burke's Law (1963-1965, TV Series), Medallion Theatre (1953, TV Series), The Ruggles (1949, TV Valentine's Day (1965, TV Series), The Cara Williams Show Series), The Lovable Cheat (1949), Give My Regards to (1965, TV Series), Sex and the Single Girl (1964), Damon Broadway (1948), It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947), Ramrod Runyon Theater (1955, TV Series), I Love Lucy (1952, TV (1947), My Brother Talks to Horses (1947), The Perfect Series), The Ghost Goes Wild (1947), Brazil (1944), Arsenic and Marriage (1947), Gallant Journey (1946), A Stolen Life (1946), Old Lace (1944), The Incendiary Blonde (1945), Bedside Manner (1945), Three Is a Magnificent Dope (1942), Family (1944), Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944), Dixie Here Comes Mr. Jordan Dugan (1943), The Perfect Snob (1941), Go West, Young Lady (1941), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), (1941), The Parson of Panamint (1941), Model Wife (1941), Bluebeard's Eighth Wife Honeymoon for Three (1941), The Invisible Woman (1940),No (1941), Shall We Dance Time for Comedy (1940), Maryland (1940), Opened by Mistake (1937), Lost Horizon (1937), (1940), The Farmer's Daughter (1940), Balalaika (1939), Night Nobody's Fool (1936), The Work (1939), Invitation to Happiness (1939), Sudden Money Private Secretary (1935), (1939), Boy Trouble (1939), His Exciting Night (1938), Service The Devil Is a Woman de Luxe (1938), Breaking the Ice (1938), (1935), The Merry Widow (1938), Exclusive (1937) Turn Off the Moon (1937), Mind Your (1934), Alice in Wonderland Own Business (1936), Wives Never Know (1936), Yours for the (1933), Trouble in Paradise Asking (1936), Early to Bed (1936), The Preview Murder (1932), The Age for Love Mystery (1936), Anything Goes (1936), of (1931), Smart Woman 1936 (1935), (1935), People Will Talk (1935), (1931), Six Cylinder Love Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), The Pursuit of Happiness (1934), (1931), The Front Page Friends of Mr. Sweeney (1934), Murder in the Private Car (1931), Lonely Wives (1931), Kiss Me Again (1931), Reaching (1934), Melody in Spring (1934), Six of a Kind (1934), Alice in for the Moon (1930), Once a Gentleman (1930), Holiday (1930), Wonderland (1933), Girl Without a Room (1933), Goodbye Love Wide Open (1930), Take the Heir (1930), The Aviator (1929), (1933), Mama Loves Papa (1933), Melody Cruise (1933), Terror Good Medicine (1929, Short), The Sap (1929), Prince Gabby Aboard (1933), Murders in the Zoo (1933), Madame Butterfly (1929, Short), The Hottentot (1929), Trusting Wives (1929, (1933), If I Had a Million (1932), Trouble in Paradise (1932), Short), The Right Bed (1929, Short), Sonny Boy (1929), Ask Dad The Night of June 13 (1932), 70,000 Witnesses (1932), Love Me (1929, Short), The Eligible Mr. Bangs (1929, Short), Call Again Tonight (1932), Make Me a Star (1932), This Is the Night (1932), (1928, Short), Vacation Waves (1928, Short), The Terror (1928), (1932), This Reckless Age (1932), The Scrambled Weddings (1928, Short), Horse Shy (1928, Short), Smiling Lieutenant (1931), The Girl Habit (1931), Honor Among Miss Information (1928, Short), Behind the Counter (1928, Lovers (1931), Charley's Aunt (1930), Short), Dad's Choice (1928, Short), Find the King (1927, Short), (1930), Queen High (1930), Young Man of Manhattan (1930), No Publicity (1927, Short), Taxi! Taxi! (1927), The Whole Roadhouse Nights (1930), Battle of Paris (1929), The Lady Lies Town's Talking (1926), Poker Faces (1926), The Nutcracker (1929), Gentlemen of the Press (1929), The Heart Raider (1923), (1926, Short), La Bohème (1926), The Business of Love (1925), The Reform Candidate (1915), Peer Gynt (1915), The Majesty of Marry Me (1925), Beggar on Horseback (1925), Helen's Babies the Law (1915) and The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914). (1924), The Man Who Fights Alone (1924), Try and Get It (1924), Flapper Wives (1924), (1923), The Vow of Edward Everett Horton (b. March 18, 1886 in , NY— Vengeance (1923), Ruggles of Red Gap (1923), A Front Page d. September 29, 1970, age 84, in Encino, CA). It seemed like Story (1922), The Ladder Jinx (1922), Too Much Business Edward Everett Horton appeared in just about every Hollywood (1922). comedy made in the 1930s. Like many of his contemporaries, Horton came to the movies from the theatre, where he debuted in VICTOR MILNER (15 December 1893, New York, New 1906. In the 1920s he acted in and managed the Majestic Theater York—29 October 1972, Los Angeles) was cinematographer on in Los Angeles with his brother and business manager, George. more than 130 films, beginning with Hiawatha in 1913 and He made his film debut in 1922. Unlike many of his silent-film ending with Jeopardy 1953. He won a best cinematographer colleagues, however, Horton had no problems in adapting to the Academy Award for Cleopatra 1934, and he was nominated for sound, despite--or perhaps because of--his crackling voice. From 8 others: The Furies 1950, 1942, North West 1932 to 1938 he worked often with Ernst Lubitsch, and later with Mounted Police 1940, The Great Victor Herbert 1939, The Frank Capra. He has appeared in more than 120 films, in addition Buccaneer 1938, The General Died at Dawn 1936, The Crusades to a large body of work on TV. Beginning in 1959 through 1964, 1935, and 1929. Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—6

more profitable to make his own films than to rent those of others, and established the Union-Film production company. Lubitsch’s first screen appearance was in the title role in Meyer auf der Alm (Meyer in the Alps, 1913). Thereafter he appeared in a succession of short Union-Film comedies, often as the archetypal Jewish dummkopf who makes good in the end, thanks to his indestructible optimism, good luck, and a winning way with the ladies. These comedies were very popular and successful, and when the studio ran out of ideas, Lubitsch came up with some of his own, offering his services as director into the bargain. According to Herman G. Weinberg, author of the wonderfully detailed biography The Lubitsch Touch, Lubitsch’s first film as director-author-star was Fräulein Seifenschaum (Miss Soapsuds, 1914), a slapstick one-reeler about a lady barber. Others maintain that his directorial debut was Blinde Kuh (Blindmans Buff), made the following year. By 1915, at any rate, Lubitsch was directing most of the comedies in which he starred, and sometimes writing them as well. In the evenings, nevertheless, he would appear in some topical sketch at the Apollo Theater and then go to eat at a show-business cafe called Mutter Maentz’s. There he would often stay until dawn, swapping anecdotes and wisecracks with his circle of Berlin wits, and puffing on his endless cigars. Lubitsch’s first big success as a director was Schuhpalast Pinkus (Shoe Salon Pinkus, 1916). It was written ERNST LUBITSCH, from World Film Directors, Vol. I. Ed partly by Hans Kräly, soon to become the directors’s regular John Wakeman. The H.W.Wilson Co., NY, 1987 scenarist, and starred Lubitsch not as a clownish Meyer or Moritz but as Solomon Pinkus, a bumptious young man-about-town. The German and American director, scenarist, producer, and actor, following year and his temperamental new star born in Berlin. He was the son of Simon Lubitsch, a Jewish tailor Pola Negri persuaded a reluctant Lubitsch to direct his first who owned a profitable men’s clothing store in the city. Ernst serious drama (and first feature) (The Lubitsch was educated at the Berlin Sophien-Gymnasium. He Eyes of the Mummy Ma, 1918), starring Negri as a temple dancer acted in school plays and at sixteen announced that he wanted a in ancient Egypt and as her fanatical pursuer. career in the theatre. He was a small, clumsy, and homely boy World War I ended soon after its release and Berlin became a and his father assured him he would be better off working in the madhouse of inflation, blackmarketeering, hunger riots, drug family business. For a time Lubitsch had to accept this judgment, peddling, and every kind of prostitution and pornography. But though he was so inept in the store that his father relegated him the arts flourished and so did the escapist cinema, greatly aided to the back office as a bookkeeper. Then he met and became the by the devaluation of the Reichsmark (which meant production friend of the comic actor Victor Arnold, who tutored him and costs could quickly be recovered if a film was sold abroad). helped him to find evening work as an actor and low comedian in In this atmosphere Lubitsch made his second film with Berlin music-halls and cabarets. In 1911, after a year of this hard “that temperamental Polish witch” Pola Negri. This was Carmen, training, Arnold introduced him to Max Reinhardt, who hired adapted by Kräly and another writer and told in flashback, with him as a member of his famous company at the Deutsches some hand-tinted scenes. Released at the end of 1918, it was Theater—a company that included Emil Jannings, Paul Wegener, voted the best German picture of the year and some years later Rudolph Schildkraut, Albert Basserman, and Conrad Veidt, was a success also in the United States (as Gypsy Blood). among other great names. However, Jay Leyda, who saw it in 1967, found it devoid of Lubitsch was nineteen when he abandoned bookkeeping Lubitsch’s characteristic wit and “film logic.” After directing two and became a full-time actor. During the next year or so he or three comedy shorts (and starring in one of them, Meyer aus appeared in a variety of minor classical and other roles, and in Berlin), Lubitsch then embarked on another feature, Die one major one, as the hunchback clown in , and he Austernprinzessin (, 1919). It had Ossi traveled with the Deutsches Theater to Vienna, Paris, and Oswalda as the spoiled daughter of an American “oyster king” London. Begining in 1912, he began to eke out his small salary who sets out to buy a Prussian aristocrat for a husband, and as a property man and general dogsbody [a person who is given satirizes with equal good humor Prussian snobbery and American boring, menial tasks to do] at the Bioscope film studios in Berlin. materialism. Lubitsch thought it his “first comedy that showed The following year he went to work as a comic actor for Paul something of a definite style.” Another hit, it was followed by a Davidson, one of Germany’s first cinema entrepreneurs. Having drama called Rausch (Intoxication), based on Strindberg’s There built over fifty movie theatres, Davidson decided that it would be are Crimes and Crimes. Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—7

Paul Davidson, the entrepreneur behind all this, then The last and most elaborate of the historical spectacles decided that he should make “the greatest film of all time.” He Lubitsch made in Germany was Das Weib des Pharao (The raised funds from UFA, the government-sponsored production Loves of the Pharaoh, 1922), which crowded the UFA lot with company in which his Union-Film was already an important palaces and pyramids and many thousands of extras (at a total element and put Lubitsch and Negri to work on Madame cost, according to one account, of only $75,000). It is a movie on Dubarry. Emil Jannings begged for and got the role of Louis XV, the scale of Intolerance or Ben Hur and took almost a year to and Lubitsch engaged over two thousand extras to fill his make. There are notable performances from Jannings as the carefully researched costumes and his studio-built Paris. The film Pharao Amenes and Paul Wegener as the King of Ethiopia, who shows what he had learned from Reinhardt about the direction of go to war for the love of the beautiful slave girl Theonis (Dagny crowd scenes and also his own unique talent as a “humanizer” of Sevraes). In December 1921 Lubitsch paid his first visit to the history. Running over two hours, it was supplied with a specially United States, taking The Loves of the Pharaoh with him. It written score, played at the Berlin premiere by a full orchestra. It opened in New York a few months later and was hailed as “a was a huge success in Germany, then all over Europe, and finally magnificent production and stirring testimony to the genius of in the United States. Some critics, it is Ernst Lubitsch.” true, objected to the presentation of the Much interviewed in the French Revolution as the outcome of an United States, Lubitsch expressed affair between a king and his midinette his admiration for Chaplin, Griffith, mistress. There was also some De Mille, Stroheim, and the resistance to the picture in the United American cinema in general, but States, even though its distributor there, with one reservation: “The American aware of the virulent anti-German moviegoing public has the mind of a feeling of the time, had retitled it twelve-year-old child: it must have Passion and removed all traces of its life as it isn’t.” Back in Berlin, German origin from the credits Lubitsch made one last film there, (including Lubitsch’s name). Die Flamme (1923), a relatively Nevertheless with this film, as Andrew small-scale story set in fin-de-siècle Sarris says, “Lubitsch almost Paris about a cocotte (Negri) who singlehandedly lifted Germany into the falls in love with a composer forefront of film-producing nations.” (Hermann Thimig), loses him, and After this triumph, Lubitsch kills herself. It was released in the demonstrated his versatility in a string United States as Montmartre (1924), of successes for Union-UFA. Die with an unsatisfactory happy ending Puppe (The Doll, 1919) is an E.T.A. tacked on for the public that “must Hoffman fantasy that makes audacious have life as it isn’t.” use of all the movie camera’s capacity In December 1922, for visual trickery (and opens with an meanwhile, Lubitsch had committed extraordinary shot of puppet-master himself to that public. The “greatest Lubitsch himself assembling a director in Europe,” the “European miniature set). Another hit (in spite of Griffith,” had been invited by charges that it was anti-clerical), it was followed by Kölhiesels “America’s sweetheart,” Mary Pickford, who starred opposite Töchter (Kölhiesel’s Daughters, 1920), a peasant Taming of the in Lubitsch’s first American movie, Rosita Shrew shot on location in Bavaria, then by a screen version of (1923). It is an agreeable fantasy about a street singer in Sumurun (One Arabian Night, 1920, with Lubitsch repeating his nineteenth-century Spain who attracts the attention of a stage performance (and vigorously overacting) as the hunchback libidinous king with a satirical song about him. Lubitsch and clown in love with a beautiful dancer (Negri). Pickford clashed incessantly, personally and professionally, (Deception, 1920), starring Jannings as throughout the three months of filming, and the picture, perhaps Henry VIII, was another spectacular essay on the influence of because it gave Pickford her first grown-up role. was not a lust on history. Gerald Mast writes that if Dubarry “is financial success. However, the critics, then and since, have convincingly eighteenth-century France, Anna Boleyn is even praised it warmly as a “distinguished and lovely film,” and Lotte more magnificently convincing as Renaissance England. Eisner was put in mind both of Goya and of Sternberg’s later The Lubitsch’s control of lighting gives the wood of sets and the Devil is a Woman. faces of people the glow of Renaissance painting.” At the same As Gerald Mast says, Rosita “closed Lubitsch’s first time, in this as in all his historical epics, Lubitsch sought to “de- period”; after it, romanticism gave way to irony, the crowded operatize” and to “humanize” his characters: “I treated the canvas was exchanged for the telling detail. The move to intimate nuances just as importantly as the mass movements and Hollywood must have had something to do with this dramatic tried to blend them both together.” Die Bergkatze (The Wildcat, change of style; marital comedies were then in vogue, and 1921) is by contrast an anti-militaristic satire, unique among his Lubitsch no doubt learned from the achievements of Stroheim films in that its bizarre sets and stylized acting were evidently and De Mille in this genre. But by far the greatest influence on influenced by expressionism (and, in its day, a complete failure). Lubitsch at his time was Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris (1923), which tells its story about a provincial girl who becomes a “kept Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—8 woman” with absolute moral detachment, great economy of with automobiles and flashlights to underline the universality of means, and brilliantly suggestive imagery. human frailty. Much of what Lubitsch learned from Chaplin is already Lubitsch’s sexual comedies always preserve this mood evident in The Marriage Circle (1924), the first of five movies he of sardonic but affectionate amusement at the dismal antics of his made for a relatively new and still minor studio called Warner characters, and it was this, as much as the obliqueness of his Brothers. It is a sophisticated comedy studying the collision innuendos, that earned him his apparent immunity from between a hopeful new marriage (Florence Vidor and Monte censorship in both Germany and America. He demonstrates both Blue) and one that is failing ( and Adolphe qualities again and again in Kiss Me Again (1925), adapted from Menjou). It impressed Iris Barry that Lubitsch “has shown, not a Sardou farce and starring Marie Prevost as a wife who wants to told, the story. Everything is visualized, all the comedy is in what divorce in favor of a long-fingered pianist (John the characters are seen or imagined to be thinking or feeling, in Roche). Much loved scenes include one in which Blue, to the interplay, never expressed in …[subtitles], of wills and facilitate the divorce, is urged by all concerned to strike his wife personalities….Gestures and situations, so lucidly presented that but cannot bring himself to do so; and the final scene in which one is perfectly aware from the ‘pictures’ alone of what is Roche, awaiting his beloved (and unaware that she and her happening, give rise to other husband are reconciled), gestures and other situations serenades her on the piano. which—because of the Blue enters in pajamas and permanence of visual urges him to play more softly memory—one recognizes as before hurrying back to the the logical outcome of what has marital bedroom. It was occurred before.” The New strokes like this, crystallizing Yorker called it “a champagne in a single shot the whole picture in a beery movie essence of a (generally world.” outrageous) situation, that In a moment of became known as “the exasperation Mary Pickford Lubitsch touch.” Robert had referred to Lubitsch as a Flaherty, asked to name his “director of doors,” and there is favorite film, usually said it justice in the charge. As Arthur was Dovzhenko’s Earth Knight has pointed out, “prior because “that’s what they to The Marriage Circle, almost expect me to say.” But, he told any decoration would do— Weinberg, “between you and either wholly nondescript for a routine film or, for a more me, my favorite film is Lubitsch’s Kiss Me Again.” elaborate production, rooms choked with bric-a-brac and The movie was chosen as one of the ten best of 1925; so overstuffed chairs set off by loudly ornamental drapes and busy was and so was Lubitsch’s adaptation of wallpaper. Lubitsch cleared away the clutter, providing clean Lady Windemere’s Fan: an unparalleled achievement. Lady playing areas for his action. The advantages were so immediately Windemere, as Ted Shane wrote, substituted Lubitsch’s “own apparent that they were incorporated into the majority of pictures great sense of cinematic wit and the dramatic” for Wilde’s from that moment on. Few directors, however, have quite his “perfumed sayings.”… Georges Sadou considered this ability to use settings to their fullest advantage. To Lubitsch, a Lubitsch’s best silent film, full of “incisive details, discreet door was always more than simply a way to get into or out of a touches, nuances of gestures, where behavior betrays the room; it was a way to end an argument, to suggest pique or character and discloses the sentiments of the personages. With coquetry or even the sexual act itself. Corridors, stairways, Lubitsch a new art carried on the subtleties of Marivaux, and the windows—all had a dramatic function in the Lubitsch films.” comedy of manners made its debut on the screen.” Three Women (1924) is a harsher picture about a “lady- So This is Paris (1926) was another “sophisticated killer” (Lew Cody) who plays mother () against comedy, full of marital complications petty jealousies, and daughter (May McAvoy)—the first for her money, the latter as a humors of the married but otherwise unemployed,” and another recruit to his “harem.” It was the first of Lubitsch’s American huge success for Warner Brothers. It captures the frenetic spirit films to be written by Hans Kräly, who had followed him to of the twenties in the sequence which shows us “a host of dance- Hollywood and who was thereafter his principal scenarist until crazed revelers performing the Charleston. Like an animated 1928. Pola Negri also arrived in Hollywood, and she starred in Cubist painting,…[Lubitsch’s] camera has caught the pulsating Forbidden Paradise (1924) as Catherine the Great of Russia, pandemonium of the scene, and the tempo of his dissolving equally interested in power and virile young officers. The visual scenes has the swing of a futuristic rhapsody…. economy of this satire has been much discussed—for example Lubitsch was then thirty-four and one of the most the officers’ revolt which is put down in three shots: the generals admired and successful film directors in the world—some placed hand moving to his sword; the chamberlain’s hand pulling out a him second only to Griffith among Hollywood directors. checkbook; the general’s hand releasing his sword. The movie’s According to Weinberg, his directorial technique was “simple, general air of mockery extends to totally unrealistic sets and the direct, patient.He didn’t believe in many rehearsals, feeling they deliberate anachronisms, which endow eighteenth-century Russia tired the actor and robbed him of his spontaneity. If a scene had to be done over several times, he never lost his patience or Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—9 courtesy…. Sitting on a small camp chair, he would lean forward high-class thieves in Venice. The tone is set in the opening in his intensity…. And his face would mirror all the emotions of sequence, when a gondola gliding through the moonlit canals is the players, male or female. Sometimes he would jump up and seen to be collecting garbage; the gondolier throws a pail of slops show an actor how to do a scene….Some directors liked to aboard and launches into a heartfelt rendition of “O Sole Mio.” improvise—not he. It must all be down in the scenario, There is never the slightest hint that the protagonists might be everything thought and worked out….Each scene has to ‘grow’ redeemed by love or anything else; they are thieves; never mind, out of the preceding one; a film was a series of propulsions or they only steal from the rich, and the rich are thieves too. Gerald combustions, like an engine which keeps a vehicle going.” Mast writes that “the delights, the gags, the comic business, the Because his scripts were “complete blueprints,” very little brilliant dialogue, the technical grace and ingenuity of camera, footage was wasted; in effect his pictures were edited before they cutting and sound have never been surpassed by any Lubitsch were shot. film”; many would agree. It was the director’s own favorite By this time all the major studios were putting their among his pictures and marked the high point in his career. directors to work on Lubitschean comedies, the master’s many For his screen version of Noel Coward’s Design for imitators including Richard Rosson, , and Living (1933), Lubitsch set Ben Hecht to work rewriting Malcolm St. Clair. Lubitsch himself was naturally much in Coward’s dialogue, explaining that the play was too static for the demand, and in 1926 he left Warner Brothers and, under the cinema and that “things on the screen should happen in the auspices of MGM, returned to Germany to shoot exteriors for present,” not be recalled in conversation. This effrontery worried The Student Prince. Based on the operetta Old Heidelberg, this contemporary critics, who also found Lubitsch’s cast (Frederic was a shrewd “fusing of sentiment and highbred comedy,” March, Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper) inferior to the soigné trio charmingly played by and Ramon Navarro of the stage original (the Lunts and Coward himself). There was (though according to Weinberg it was considerably “doctored” a mixed reception also for The Merry Widow (MGM, 1934), a by the studio). sumptuous Chevalier-MacDonald adaptation of the Lehar Lubitsch’s next picture began his ten-year tenure at operetta that failed to recover its costs. Paramount. The “German invasion” of Hollywood had continued In November 1934, tired and a little shaken, Lubitsch and Emil Jannings was now on the scene. Lubitsch starred him in acquired a new job as production chief at Paramount. He The Patriot (1928) as the mad Czar Paul I….The Patriot, made produced Sternberg’s The Devil Is A Woman and Borzage’s on the eve of the advent of sound, was given a synchronized Desire, but in 1936 was abruptly replaced by William Le Baron. musical score, together with some sound effects and occasional Lubitsch’s own next film, Angel (1937), was his greatest failure. voices. ...Lubitsch’s own first talkie was The Love Parade Set in London and Paris in the mid-1930s, and with a cast headed (1929), adapted by Ernest Vajda and Guy Bolton from a by Marlene Dietrich as a neglected wife, Herbert Marshall as her successful play...and the cast included Jeanette MacDonald in her oblivious husband, and Melvyn Douglas as an amorous bachelor, first screen role as the Queen of Sylvania, Maurice Chevalier as it builds its plot around the fact that the “salon” where Dietrich her bored and erring consort, Lupino Lane as his valet, and and Douglas meet is in fact an elegant brothel. Given the ever- Lillian Roth as the Queen’s maid (with Jean Harlow as an extra). increasing puritanism of the period, this was a very nearly Lubitsch had his doubts about sound, but when it came impossible theme, but Lubitsch found ways of telling his story he took to it with the greatest ease and panache. The Love Parade without ever mentioning its real content…. is witty in its dialogue, lavish in its settings, startling in its sexual This decline in Luitsch’s reputation was halted by the innuendos, and adroit in its introduction of songs…. Theodore enormous popularity of Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938), his last Huff called this “the first truly cinematic screen musical in film for Paramount. It has Gary Cooper as a much-married America.”… American millionaire who finally succumbs to the daughter From time to time throughout his career, Lubitsch () of an impoverished French marquis, and the seems to have become dissatisfied with his court jester role and brilliant dialogue was supplied by Charles Brackett and Billy to have set out to demonstrate a capacity for something more Wilder. The same team, supplemented by Walter Reisch, wrote serious than sexual comedies. He did so in Rausch, The Patriot, Ninotchka (MGM, 1939), Lubitsch’s only film with Greta Garbo. and Eternal Love, and he tried again with The Man I Killed She plays a dour and dedicated Soviet commissar sent to Paris to (1932), adapted from a Maurice Rostand play by Sam straighten out three comrades who have been seduced from the Raphaelson and Ernest Vadja. It is a somber pacifist tract about a path of duty by capitalistic self-indulgence. She meets an young Frenchman who kills an enemy soldier in World War I aristocratic French playboy (Melvyn Douglas) and herself and later goes to Germany to beg the forgiveness of the dead succumbs to Paris, glamour, and romance. Cheerfully satirizing youth’s parents. Adulated by the critics, it failed at the box- both communism and capitalism (and thus antagonizing some office. More recently, Andrew Sarris has suggested that the Marxist critics), it is one of the wittiest and also one of the public knew better than the critics—that the film is “Lubitsch’s warmest of Lubitsch comedies. It is not particularly well least inspired and most calculated effort, all surface effect, all endowed with “Lubitsch touches” but remains perhaps the best ritualistic piety toward a ‘noble’ subject.” loved of all his works, largely because of Garbo’s ineffable At any rate, Lubitsch returned to his métier with One impersonation of beautiful iceberg slowly lighting up from Hour With You (1932), a remake with music of The Marriage within and melting into imperfect but irresistible humanity. Circle that apparently was directed by (credited Garbo herself once said that “Ninotchka was the only time I had only as dialogue director), and followed it with Trouble in a great director in Hollywood.” Paradise (1932). This masterpiece stars Miriam Hopkins and A leather goods and novelty shop in Budapest is the Herbert Marshall in a totally amoral comedy about a couple of setting of The Shop Around the Corner (MGM, 1940). James Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—10

Stewart is the head clerk, a salesgirl, and they forged deeper into sexual desires, needs, frustrations and fears quarrel so much that they eventually realize they must be in love. than most of his contemporaries (and descendants) dared to go.” It is one of the few Lubitsch films not concerned with the antics Jean Renoir thought that Lubitsch “invented the modern of the rich and idle, and it is difficult to understand why it did not Hollywood.” fare better at the box office….That Uncertain Feeling (United Robert E. Sherwood described the director as “an Artists, 1941) was a disappointing and much altered remake of extremely short, dark, thickset man, with ponderous shoulders Kiss Me Again, translated from Paris to New York. and huge, twinkling eyes. In appearance he resembled a It was followed by the controversial comedy To Be or combination of Napoleon and Punchinello; in character he Not To Be (United Artists, 1942), in which a Warsaw theatre combined the best features of each.” Lubitsch’s 1922 marriage to company during the Nazi occupation combines its work with a Irma Kraus ended in divorce in the early 1930s. Some years later little sabotage against the invaders. According to Theodore Huff, he married an Englishwoman, Sania (whom he called Vivian); the piece was called “callous, a picture of confusing moods, they were divorced towards the end of World War II. Lubitsch lacking in taste, its subject not suitable for fun-making.” It didn’t had a daughter, Nicola, by this second marriage. He was a help that it was released shortly after the death in a plane crash of hyperactive man who drove himself relentlessly, a gourmet, a its star, Caorle Lombard. In fact, the film is rich in the kind of wit, and a practical joker; he never lost his music-hall German “black humor” that only became acceptable years later. Peter accent nor relinquished the big black cigars that became his Bogdanowich wrote in 1972 that it trademark. He loved to dance, “survives not only as satire but as a and he played the piano and the glorification of man’s indomitable cello badly but with spirits in the face of disaster— enthusiasm. survives in a way that many more For Lubitsch, the serious and high-toned works crucial stage in making a film about the war do not.” was the preparation of the In 1943 Lubistch joined script, and he worked so 20th Century-Fox as a producer- closely with his writers that director, performing both functions they could seldom remember for his first movie there, Heaven afterwards who contributed Can Wait (1943)….It was what to the finished product. Lubitsch’s first film in color, Many of his writers became which he used well enough to earn close friends. Samson an admiring comment from D.W. Raphaelson, his favorite Griffith. In 1945 the director has scenarist of the post-Kräly his first heart attack while working period, remembered him like on a remake of Forbidden this: “Lubitsch loved ideas Paradise called A Royal Scandal. more than anything in the Otto Preminger took over and Lubitsch was credited as producer, world, except his daughter Nicola. It didn’t matter what kind of though the film has nothing of his style. The same is true of ideas. He could become equally impassioned over an exit speech Dragonwyck (1946) of which he was also the nominal producer. for a character in the current script, the relative merits of Lubitsch went back to work in the spring of 1946. He Horowitz and Heifetz, the aesthetics of modern painting, or produced and directed Cluny Brown, an excellent satire on whether now is the time to but real estate. And his passion was English society with a fine cast headed by Charles Boyer and usually much stronger than that of anyone else around him, so he Jennifer Jones and including Reginald Gardiner, C. Aubrey was likely to dominate in a group. Yet I never saw, even in this Smith, Peter Lawford, and other pillars of Hollywood’s “British territory of egoists, anyone who didn’t light up with pleasure in Colony.” In 1947 Lubitsch began work on That Lady in Ermine, Lubitsch’s company. We got that pleasure from the purity and a screen version of an operetta starring . after a childlike delight of his lifelong love affair with ideas….As an week’s shooing he became ill and Preminger again took over. artist he was sophisticated, as a man almost naive. As an artist Lubitsch died later the same year at the age of fifty-five. shrewd, as a man simple.” Theodore Huff defined the “Lubitsch touch” as a “swift innuendo or rapier-like ‘comment’ accomplished pictorially by a Raymond Durgnat, The Crazy Mirror Hollywood Comedy and brief camera shot or telling action, to convey an idea or a the American Image, 1969 suggestion in a manner impossible in words.” Lubitsch himself “...the famous ‘Lubitsch touch’ is misleadingly named, for it is thought that “one shouldn’t single out ‘touches.’ They’re part of not so much something added to a story as a method of telling a a whole. The camera should comment, insinuate, make an story through ellipsis and emphasis. Omitting the obvious epigram or a bon mot, as well as tell a story. We’re telling stories presentation, Lubitsch substitutes allusive detail, and then with pictures so we must try to make the pictures as expressive as emphasizes that detail, not simply to be sure that even a hick we can.” Gerald Mast thought Lubitsch the American cinema’s audience gets the point, but in such a way that the sweet nothing greatest technician after Griffith and wrote: his “art is one of becomes the ornamental equivalent of the dramatic sense. As one omission….he consistently shows less than he might, implies of the censors bitterly complained, after the Hays Code had more than he shows.” In this way Lubitsch “transformed clamped down in 1933, ‘you know what he’s saying but you just melodramatic and sentimental tripe into credible human stuff and can’t prove that he’s saying it!’” Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—11

Andrew Bergman, We’re in the Money: Depression America nearly every other director I ever interviewed mentioned with and Its Films, 1971 respect and awe as among the very best.” Trouble In Paradise (1932), which Dwight Macdonald thought “as close to perfection as anything I have ever seen in the When Paramount Pictures was foundering while trying to escape movies,” was a dazzling directorial performance. Lubitsch from bankruptcy, he took over as production head, the only demonstrated a fluidity of movement which most talkies still major director in Hollywood history to run a large movie studio. failed to achieve; his camera never lingered unnecessarily and In a Hollywood career lasting a quarter century, he was the only subtleties abounded. The story line involved a romance between studio director whose work was contractually sacrosanct, two thieves...who fall for each other while plying their trade. She immune from tampering by studio heads like Jack Warner and lifts his watch, he steals her garters and they embrace. Lubitsch’s Darryl Zanuck. sophistication about sex, and his rebellion against Hollywood’s monumentalization of illicit love, also is demonstrated by his He was a pet hate of Hitler’s, who reputedly demanded that a treatment of the protagonists’ cohabitation; he makes no large blowup of his face be mounted in the Berlin train station comment. They are obviously living together (casually sipping over the words “The Archetypal Jew.” their breakfast coffee) and they are just as obviously not married. It is taken as close to granted as it could be in 1932. (After the As the critic Michael Wilmington observed, Lubitsch movies Production Code was strictly enforced in 1934, such blithe “were at once elegant and ribald, sophisticated and earthy, sexuality would vanish from the screen).. urbane and bemused, frivolous yet profound. They were directed by a man who was amused by sex rather than frightened by it– and who taught a whole culture to be amused by it as well.” For this was the secret of Lubitsch’s films: they were fantasies of blithe sexuality and emotional noninvolvement, not just for the audience, but for him as well. In this superior world of the imagination, the men are tall and elegant and humorously adept at getting a beautiful lady into bed, and the women are capable of giving as well as receiving love.

[when filming Madame DuBarry with Pola Negri and Emil Jannings] Standing in for Versailles was Frederick the Great’s Sans Souci, in Potsdam. When the company arrived to do their location work, the weather was cold and Negri was wearing flannel underwear under the thin silks of her costumes. Noticing the slight bulkiness, Lubitsch lifted her dress and snapped, “Get into some silk panties. Can you imagine DuBarry wearing those?” Negri obeyed, and froze for the rest of the location shoot.

Leni Sonnet was an attractive, very sensual woman, just the sort Scott Eyman, Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise (Johns to bring a hidebound, lonely man suddenly roaring out of his Hopkins University Press, 2000): workaholic’s closet. She was also another in a long line of non- Jewish blondes that Lubitsch would be attracted to. A typical In that Golden Age of Hollywood that everybody’s always man of his time, Lubitsch would tell Leni that he would never be talking about there were only two directors whose names meant able to marry a Jewish woman. “It would be like marrying my anything to the public and critics: Cecil B. De Mille and Ernst sister,” he claimed. [they married shortly thereafter] Lubitsch. Claudette Colbert None of us thought we were making anything but entertainment Lubitsch was probably thinking of Negri when he wrote in 1932 for the moment. Only Ernst Lubitsch knew we were making art. that “The relation between a director and an actress is like the John Ford relation between a man and his mistress. They are bound together “I’d like to repay you. . . ” “All right, give me a letter of by contract, but there is no sentimental attachment.” introduction to Lubitsch.” “I might be able to . . .Who’s Lubitsch?” From ’s “Sullivan’s Travels” As the first German to emigrate to Hollywood after World War I, Ernst was the point man in a brain drain that, over the next ten In the car on the way back to the office, Wurzel asked the years, would decimate German film. invariably affable director why he was wasting his time on an Nathan Burkan, the attorney for , Pickford’s insert shot. “Young man, let me explain something to you,” said partner [she’d chosen Lubitsch to direct her in her first adult film Lubitsch. “Every shot in a picture is the most important shot in a role] in United Artists, quietly met Ernst in New York in an picture.” effort to defuse any bad press. Lubitsch’s appearance did not jibe with the image of a director who had “humanized history.” He Likewise Peter Bogdonavich, who notes in his invaluable Who wore egg-top trousers and banana yellow boots, and had several the Devil Made It that “Lubitsch . . .is the one director whom gold teeth in the front of his mouth. He looked like a middle- class Jewish burgher. Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—12

After considerable struggle, Burkan outfitted him with a new original script. Proving that he was a gifted creator as well as an wardrobe and had his own dentist replace the gold teeth with interpreter, To Be or Not to Be was one of his greatest films.) porcelain ones. [When he arrived in LA there were WWI American veterans protesting his working in America.] Some parts were written for specific actors such as Edward Everett Horton and . The hushed, murmuring [working on Forbidden Paradise with Negri she protested a Herbert Marshall seems to have come in later in the casting negligee was unwieldy and dangerous to run in] process. Lubitsch must have been amused by Marshall’s way “Nonsense,” Lubitsch soothed her. “You’ll manage with women; while very much married, Marshall managed perfectly.” affairs with both Kay Francis and Miriam Hopkins, as well as a “If it catches on the railing I’ll break my neck.” serious relationship with , all within the space of “What’s wrong with you? We did much more dangerous a few years. stunts in Berlin.” As always, Lubitsch and “Sem” slaved over the script. “I was younger then.” “We spent—oh, maybe three days getting that opening shot,” “Three years younger.” Furious, Lubitsch marched her remembered Raphaelson. “He wouldn’t be content unless we got into a dressing room, snatched the negligee off her, and stepped a brilliant opening shot. We wanted to introduce Venice. . .Now, into it. Dressed in the negligee, puffing on his cigar, Lubitsch pictorially, the conventional way of saying that is to open on a dashed down the stairs and back again, conclusively proving that long shot of Venice, medium shot of wherever you want to be, the costume was not dangerous and that it looked better on Negri. and close shot on the canal and the house, and then you go inside For Negri, this was just like old times, “fighting on a set the house or hotel or whatever it is. That’s [the] conventional again and both enjoying it enormously.” But Lubitsch’s tolerance way. for temperament had decreased as his own importance had “Now,” Lubitsch would sit and say, ‘How do we do that increased; he would never work with Negri again. without doing that?’” What Lubitsch and Raphaelson finally came up with [Patsy Ruth Miller] “What particularly endeared him to me was was the famous opening where the singer of a glorious operatic the fact that he loved America. Some of the foreign directors, air turns out to be a trash collector. Even in glorious, romantic like Victor Seastrom, were so scornful. Not a warm personality. Venice, someone has to pick up the garbage, but this being But Ernst loved America, loved the American people.” Venice–and Lubitsch–they must do it with panache. This Lubitsch felt comfortable with Miller and let down his sardonic undercutting of the ordinary is quintessential “Lubitsch guard of impersonal geniality when he told her that “You must touch,” but the director was careful not to overdo a good thing. take care of your money. You must save your money. You must “Other times, he started [writing the script] right away, always have enough money.” “ Raphaelson told Barry Sabath. “He didn’t want to get a brilliant Confused, asked why. opening shot. Here, he felt he wanted it. He wanted to open with “Because then you don’t have to be nice to anybody you laughter and with style–and style, of course, is the essence of don’t like.” Lubitsch.”

Lubitsch would freely admit that the picture was worked out in Lubitsch orchestrates his film with matchless grace and style to his mind to such an extent that, once the script was done, “I’ve the nth degree, using all manner of optical devices–dissolves, finished the picture, All I have to do is photograph it. . .As you wipes–even near-recitatives to move the film along on its toes. write the script, you cut the film, you build the sets, you light And, his professional luck was holding; Trouble in Paradise was your players, you design their wardrobe, you set the tempo, you released just a year and a half ahead of the imposition of the delineate the characters. . .For me, it is virtually all done in the Production Code, which would have made a story centering on script.” By the time a script was finished, Ernst almost never sexual swapping and resolutely unpunished crime impossible. referred to it, having long since committed it to memory. Shooting a film rarely took more than eight weeks. More heavily scored than most 1932 films, Lubitsch directs Trouble in Paradise as if it were an art deco musical, with the With his passion for all things Hungarian, Lubitsch probably dialogue in place of lyrics and the characters as the elegant score. knew of [the swindler and thief Georges] Georges Manolescu, Miriam Hopkins runs at her usual frantic pace, but Herbert whose name, in the film, was slightly altered to Gaston Monescu. Marshall and the languid, knowing Kay Francis become the [Manolescu’s 1907 Memoirs had previously resulted in at least film’s shimmering, tranquil erotic center. two silent films]. Trouble in Paradise continued Lubitsch’s habit of latching onto an obscure, inferior play, usually Hungarian, and Trouble in Paradise is perhaps Lubitsch’s clearest statement yet playing Pygmalion to its dog-eared Galatea. Although these on the tenuous nature of romantic relationships, and on the works were nearly always structurally flawed (“You could have a necessity of variation and some gentle mutual deceit to stave off play that fell apart and still have a success in Budapest,” lethargy and boredom. It’s a dazzling Möbius strip of erotic remembered Raphaelson), they invariably had an intriguing allusion, genial irony and dégagé visual lyricism and elegance. central situation and romantic characters. That was all Lubitsch There’s self-consciousness in the characters–their arch needed. Psychologically, it made more sense to him to fix what sophistication is always poised on the precipice of parody, yet was broken than to build from the ground up.(In the fifteen years never quite tumbles in–but there is no self-righteousness. Gaston remaining to him, Lubitsch would produce only one entirely may be cheerfully amoral, but he never mocks the pretensions and vanities of the rich while he’s stealing from them, because Lubitsch—TROUBLER IN PARADISE—13 what he really wants is to live like them. It’s nice work if you can Gaston Monescu is doing the robbing is merely poetic justice. get it. Although without work or training, his industriousness marks At the same time Lubitsch creates a world that, him as their (im)moral superior. Equally ruthless, but swifter, underneath the glowing surfaces of Hans Dreier’s furniture and more elegant, he is one of them. sets, is recognizably real. People steal while pretending to be honest, they fret more over a lost handbag than over the starving “There is Paramount’s Paris and Metro Paris, and of course the people they pass on their way to work. These ironies are never real Paris. Paramount’s is the most Parisian of all.” Ernst stated directly, but they’re there nonetheless. Lubitsch The rate of consumption of Madame Colet and her friends is so spectacular–and so casual–that Lubitsch’s clear “As for pure style, I have done nothing better or as good as implication is that they deserve to be robbed. What sets Madame Trouble in Paradise,”he wrote in 1947. Colet apart is that she seems to realize that. That a man like

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2016 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXXIII: Sept 6 A Night at the Opera 1935 Sept 13 Jean Cocteau Beauty and the Beast 1946 Sept 20 Jacques Tourneur Out of the Past 1947 Sept 27 Yasujiro Ozu Late Spring 1949 Oct 4 Joseph L. Mankiewicz All About Eve 1950 Oct 11 Federico Fellini La Dolce Vita 1960 Oct 18 Orson Welles Chimes at Midnight 1966 Oct 25 Sarah Elder and Leonard Kamerling The Drums of Winter 1977 Nov 1 Hal Ashby Being There 1979 Nov 8 Brian De Palma The Untouchables 1987 Nov 15 Norman Jewison Moonstruck 1987 Nov 22 Andrei Tarkovsky The Sacrifice 1986 Nov 29 Alfonso Arau Like Water for Chocolate 1992 Dec 6 Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck The Tourist 2010

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