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For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications The Lubitsch Touch A Meta-Critical Study, 1923–1947 Barbara Verena Ottmann Department of Film and Television Studies University of Warwick A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Television Studies September 2015 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ______________________________________________________ iv Declaration, Library Declaration and Deposit Agreement _________________________ vi Abstract _______________________________________________________________ ix List of Illustrations _______________________________________________________ x I Introduction ___________________________________________________________ 1 II Review of Literature ____________________________________________________ 8 1. Issues in Historiography _______________________________________ 9 2. Film Authorship and the Auteur Debate ___________________________ 15 3. The State of Lubitsch Studies ___________________________________ 23 III A Prologue: Lubitsch in Germany, 1913-1923 _______________________________ 40 IV Lubitsch in Hollywood, 1923-1947 ________________________________________ 61 1. Between German Invasion and Sophistication: The 1920s _______________ 61 1.1 Introduction ________________________________________________ 61 1.2 Lubitsch and the German Invasion _______________________________ 66 1.3 Sophistication and the Rise of the Sophisticated Comedy _____________ 79 1.4 The Emergence of the Lubitsch Touch ____________________________ 101 1.5 Conclusion _________________________________________________ 119 2. A Historical Panorama: The 1930s __________________________________ 121 2.1 Introduction ________________________________________________ 121 2.2 Lubitsch the Re-invigorator or: The Musical _______________________ 124 2.3 Artistic Independence between Permissiveness and Production Code or: Lubitsch and Sexuality _____________________________________ 144 2.4 One More Star than there is in Heaven or: Lubitsch and Stardom _______ 173 2.5 The Lubitsch Touch and Studio Style or: Lubitsch and Paramount ______ 208 2.6 Conclusion _________________________________________________ 239 ii 3. Swansong for Lubitsch: The 1940s _________________________________ 243 3.1 Introduction ________________________________________________ 243 3.2 Lubitsch Critiqued ___________________________________________ 251 3.3 Lubitsch Promoted ___________________________________________ 264 3.4 Conclusion _________________________________________________ 289 V Conclusion ___________________________________________________________ 292 Works Cited ____________________________________________________________ 305 Filmography ____________________________________________________________ 333 iii Acknowledgments Which student has not read scores of acknowledgements in their time? Yet, what they really mean, one can only ever understand when one oneself sits down at the (preliminary) end of a long project to say ‘thank you.’ In our first meeting, Alastair Phillips said there were so many directions into which I could take this project. It is safe to say that I have explored many, oh so many, of these directions; walking down avenues and roads and at times finding myself on footpaths turned into mere trails. Through all these years I could not have asked for better and more enthusiastic guides by my side than my supervisors, Jon Burrows and Alastair Phillips – thank you both so much. I was fortunate enough to choose a topic that required extensive travelling. I got to live the researcher’s dream delving into the truly fantastic resources at the Library of Congress in Washington DC for several months. The icing on what already was a pretty good cup cake (this was 2013 and the height of the cupcake craze), was being fabulously looked after by the Kluge Research Center. Thank you, Mary Lou Reker, Travis Hensley and the librarians at the Motion Picture and Television Reading Room. Trips to other archives and libraries may have been shorter and less complicated to plan, but proved no less rewarding and vital for the project. I am especially grateful to Bill Marshall and Erica Carter for taking off my hands the planning of the Frankfurt leg during a great Spring School in 2013. Many thanks to all librarians between München and Berlin, London and Los Angeles, who have never batted an eyelid at my research requests as idiosyncratic as they may have seemed. I still wonder if I was the first person to ask for film magazines from the 1910s at the library of a military university! Thank you also to all the members of staff of the Film Department at Warwick, who have been so helpful in all aspects of PhD life, especially Martin Pumphrey, Rachel Moseley, Stephen Gundle and Tracey McVey. I will not forget Richard Perkins, Emma Smith, with the Thesis Writing Group, and Lauren Elmore – ‘academic support’ does not quite cover the extent of your help. It would all have only been half as fun without the post-graduate community of the department as well as beyond, especially my office buddies Matt Denny and Charlotte Stevens, Adam Gallimore and Owen Weetch, who have all been there since the very beginning, as well as James Kang and Patrick Pilkington (“Stay tenacious!”), Desiree Arbo, Wuttiya Payukmag and Nat ‘Panda’ Shiers. At times my living room, Warwick Arts Centre iv has also provided much-needed breaks from my desk and many new friends over the years. Further afield, Uscha Halla, Obie Matin, Holly Mak, Diana Mantel, Susanne Schuster, Isabell Wagner-Marie and so many more friends, without fail, have always accepted my prolonged absences and silences. The Bray family adopted me the moment that I stumbled into their lives, still ruffled from a rather unexpected journey to Coventry. Thomas Bray, it’s been absolutely wonderful underneath that rainbow. And finally, meine Familie daheim: Über Jahre habt ihr mich nun durch mein Studium begleitet – mehr als die Hälfte davon aus der Ferne. Ich kann nur vermuten, dass das oft auch nicht so ganz leicht war und ist. Ohne euch und den direkten Draht nach Hause, dessen ich mir immer sicher sein kann, wäre dieses englische Abenteuer nicht möglich gewesen. Merci und danke schön. v Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis has not been submitted, either in the same or different form, to this or any other University for a degree. Barbara Ottmann vi Library Declaration and Deposit Agreement 1. STUDENT DETAILS Please complete the following: F . 2. THESIS DEPOSIT 2.1 Under your registration at the University, you are required to deposit your thesis with the University in BOTH hard copy and in digital format. The digital copy should normally be saved as a single pdf file. 2.2 The hard copy will be housed in the University Library. The digital copy will be deposited in the . 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