Of Lubitsch, Sturges, and Wilder June 12, 2008
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s, 1940s, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch , 4 commentsThough it initially seemed anticlimactic, the recent fire at Universal Studios in California proved to be more damaging than common sense would have first envisioned. Screening prints of the classic Paramount films of the ’30s and ’40s, owned by Universal and including films by the three directors in the post title as well as several others, were destroyed forever. A programmer for Film Forum in New York told the NY Times that a potential Preston Sturges festival would most likely be scrapped as a result. Bad news all around. The media focused on a comparatively inconsequential King Kong theme park ride while beautiful silver celluloid is transformed into ashes. I can’t hardly classify the loss as tragic, a word which really should be reserved for life and death calamities, but it’s upsetting nonetheless.
These three guys, Lubitsch, Sturges and Wilder, form the backbone of classic Hollywood comedy. Their colleague Leo McCarey was another vital presence who also worked at Paramount and whose key films (including Ruggles of Red Gap) remain largely unreleased, now increasingly difficult to see in repertory screenings, as well. Josef von Sternberg is right there, too. If there’s anything at all worth smiling about, it’s that several films related to this trio have recently surfaced on DVD. Quite a few of their films as writer and director are still without a DVD release, possibly deterred even further by this turn of events, but I wanted to mention the few that have reached the market, which, conveniently, I’ve also reviewed for DVD Times.
Back in February, Criterion’s Eclipse line released Lubitsch’s four Paramount musicals in a nifty, extras-less edition. It’s a must-own for fans of the director. Around the same time, Wilder’s The Apartment got a nice upgrade from MGM. (It was originally released by United Artists.) More recently, the BFI put out Lubitsch’s final completed film, Cluny Brown. Made for Fox in 1946, it’s an appropriate ending to a great career. I had vastly underestimated the film after an initial viewing when I put up a review back early last year on this site. The more pertinent Paramount/Universal titles hit stores in April. I’ve reviewed all these, including Wilder’s first film as director in Hollywood, The Major and the Minor. Also out are a pair of Mitchell Leisen-directed efforts. Easy Living, with screenplay from Sturges, and Midnight, a sparkling film written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, finally received their digital releases, I believe, for the first time anywhere in the world.
This still leaves several Paramount-made, Universal-controlled pictures from the Lubitsch, Sturges, and Wilder cycle unavailable on R1 DVD. Most notably - Angel, directed by Lubitsch and available in a Marlene Dietrich set in R2, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife, another Lubitsch picture and written by Brackett and Wilder, Remember the Night, written by Sturges and directed by Leisen but not on DVD anywhere, Hold Back the Dawn, which was directed by Leisen and scripted by Brackett and Wilder, and two early Wilder-directed films, Five Graves to Cairo and A Foreign Affair. Both of those latter movies are available in other regions, but still absent in R1. There are a handful of others, things like Arise My Love which I’ve been anxious to see, but I’m now hesitant as to whether any of these films will make it onto R1 DVD in the near future. Despite business concerns, it would seem appropriate for Universal to reveal exactly what films were lost (surely their bookkeeping contains such records) instead of playing so coy.
The Shop Around the Corner December 20, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1940s, Ernst Lubitsch , 4 comments
The Shop Around the Corner is a 1940 film directed by Ernst Lubitsch and adapted for the screen by Samson Raphaelson. James Stewart stars as a sales clerk in a small Budapest shop and top-billed Margaret Sullavan plays a newly hired shop girl in the same quaint little store. The plot point that usually grabs the most attention is that the two co-workers fall in love with each other anonymously while also clashing at work, but this isn’t entirely revealed until over halfway through the picture. The famous remake from a few years ago starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, You’ve Got Mail, neglected the other, precisely crafted details that make the movie so wonderful and instead focused almost solely on the unlikely romance between two people who outwardly loathe each other.
I can remember Hanks commenting in interviews promoting his version that he couldn’t figure out why the Lubitsch film is set in Budapest with characters mostly forgoing accents despite their Hungarian names. Raphaelson was a New Yorker through and through, but Lubitsch was, of course, from neighboring Germany. He had a knack, along with his torch-carrying protege Billy Wilder, for turning eastern European plays and stories into slightly Hollywoodized film product that retained a sophisticated sweetness without melting into sickly sugar. This is what happened with The Shop Around the Corner, which was based on the play “Illatszertar,” or “Parfumerie” written by Miklós László, a Hungarian playwright who, like Lubitsch, relocated to the United States. Obviously, Raphaelson and Lubitsch could have moved the events to New York City or somewhere similar, but why?
Any alterations to the setting might have worked, but, more likely, would have affected the entire atmosphere of the story. The small, incredibly charming store depicted in the film doesn’t feel American at all. The hustle and bustle of metropolitan capitalism feels a world away from The Shop Around the Corner. Cigarette boxes that play “Winter Wonderland” just wouldn’t have had the same effect. Plus, it’s nice to have a Christmas movie that’s in English but retains some of the more European aspects of the holiday.
One thing in the film that struck me on a recent viewing was the incredible differences in how Christmas is now versus how it’s depicted here. Some of these are obvious and expected, but the fascinating and mildly depressing truth is that most aren’t. The shop workers are nice, customer-oriented and ready to help. I’m assuming this was fairly accurate for the time and place and I’m not surprised, but it’s definitely not consistent with my experiences. More interesting is the contrast between how the characters approach the holiday and their expectations and the lack of stress they show. Somewhere in these last 67 years, it seems that Christmas has become one of the most stressful times of the year. Here, it’s a happy time of relief and excitement that isn’t preceded by months of worrying about what to buy or the impending credit card bills.
Cultural and generational changes I’ll accept, but there’s more. Sullavan’s Klara is fretting a little over whether to buy her soon-to-be fiance that she’s never met a cigarette box or a wallet - humble gifts that represent her love without having to compensate by purchasing more and more things he doesn’t need. Now we buy cars and expensive gadgets and various other things we were fine without before we knew neighbor Bob and celebrity spokesperson Jim had one. Essentially, it’s materialism and consumerism that have combined to completely alter the landscape of what Christmas is and what giving gifts must entail. Try giving someone a cigarette (or candy) box that plays “Ochi Tchornya” instead of a GPS this year and watch the reaction. Your kids don’t get iPods, they get imported pigskin wallets. One’s practical and useful, the other is a toy that distances us from society.
Speaking of distancing, the gap created by Alfred and Klara, the two characters Stewart and Sullavan play, is remarkably touching. The film begins when Klara enters the store and Alfred helps her like he would any other customer. He finds out she’s not looking for a cigarette box, but, instead, a job. The very practical store owner Mr. Matuschek (played by the great Frank Morgan, aka the Wizard of Oz) doesn’t have any positions available, but sees Klara is a skilled salesgirl and reluctantly hires her. Lubitsch and Raphaelson insert little digs between Alfred and Klara, all the while slowly building up the mystery pen pal letters Alfred has told his friend and co-worker Vadas about. It’s a shining example of economic filmmaking and storytelling, where a film that’s ostensibly a romantic comedy neglects romance for the majority of the movie and peppers the comedy just perfectly. Lubitsch’s movies are so often described as those dreaded romantic comedies, but they resemble almost nothing in other films of this genre. They’re light and serious, funny and poignant, and genuinely, but quietly romantic.
The duality explored in Klara and Alfred’s relationship is perhaps the film’s strongest aspect. That these same two people could believably love each other without realizing it and simultaneously dislike, even have contempt for the other is remarkable, but absolutely true of how love often works, I think. Their outward interactions, the public face each shows, cause disregard and antipathy while their private, often innermost thoughts and feelings build a deep bond of affection and trust. This is love in a nutshell, right? No one is the same behind the closed doors of their mind as they are in the more vulnerable arena of the daily outside world. When we meet someone and develop a lasting love, isn’t it almost always because we learn and adore who the person really is, the one they show only us, and not who the rest of the world gets to see. Klara and Alfred exposed themselves in their letters and found each other through the mind instead of the eyes. Beautiful. And that moment when Klara realizes that Alfred is her box 237 must be one of the most fulfilling and romantic scenes ever in film, completely and honestly earned by Raphaelson and Lubitsch.
The complex real-life relationship between Sullavan and Stewart adds another fascinating layer to the film. The two had met while Stewart was at Princeton and he joined a stock company that included Sullavan. He was apparently smitten immediately, but she was becoming established as an actress and he was a shy, gangly college student. Things became a bit more complicated when Stewart’s good friend Henry Fonda, also in the same acting company, married Sullavan while she was making a name for herself on Broadway. She went to Hollywood and divorced Fonda, who ended up rooming with Stewart in New York. By the time Stewart made his way out west, Sullavan had become a known leading lady and had married and divorced director William Wyler before settling down with Leland Hayward, who became Stewart’s agent. They would make four movies together total and most all accounts indicate that Stewart carried an unrequited torch for Sullavan throughout.
Cluny Brown January 4, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1940s, Ernst Lubitsch , 1 comment so far
Cluny Brown, Ernst Lubitsch’s final completed film, is a charming enough story of two outsiders living on the country estate of a wealthy English family in the late 1930s. (That’s them in the opening titles.) The title character is a kooky young woman (Jennifer Jones, hanging on to her American accent) who’s been raised by her plumber uncle and picked up some trade skills (mostly just banging at the pipes) along the way. By chance, she meets Adam Belinski (Charles Boyer, French accent and all) after taking a service call meant for her uncle, who was otherwise occupied. Belinski, a Czech professor and writer, shows up to the same London apartment just before Cluny arrives, not realizing the friend he was intending to see had sublet his dwelling to a man who now has a clogged sink.
Their paths will cross again, after Cluny is hired as a maid at the same residence where Mr. Belinski had been taken in as a guest. This improbable reunion is highlighted by some advice Belinski had told Cluny back at their initial meeting, which she repeats aloud the first time she sees him again, just as she drops her first dinner service plate. Unconvincingly, both agree to maintain a platonic friendship despite Mr. Belinski’s obvious interest in Cluny. A large portion of the film separates the actions of each with little or no convergence between the characters. Cluny pursues another romance while Belinski endears himself to the English family who’ve graciously agreed to lodge him indefinitely as a result of a misunderstanding about his safety from the Nazis.
Lubitsch and his screenwriters gently skewer the English upper class, as well as class in general, frequently portraying them as out of touch and frivolous. Peter Lawford’s Andrew is so upset about Hitler’s impending war that he wrote a letter to the Times. He sees Belinski’s requests for money as opportunities to help show his respect for a brave and honorable man, as opposed to being taken advantage of by a layabout. His father is oblivious to world events, so much so that he’s ready to praise the Nazis when he thinks that’s the popular opinion. Meanwhile, their service staff openly disdains Cluny’s innocent blunders and is taken aback when Mr. Belinski treats them as equals.
Even more so than Heaven Can Wait, the Technicolor enriched Fox film he made just previous, Cluny Brown is a significant step down from the great Lubitsch comedies. It meanders between the two characters and often seems to suffer from a lack of focus on either. The result is sometimes disjointed and awkward, with the ending inevitable to anyone who’s ever watched a romantic comedy. Furthermore, the laughs are less prevalent than in other Lubitsch films (aside from Una O’Connor’s wheezing and hacking) and missing the thougtful undertones found in To Be or Not to Be and Heaven Can Wait, both of which often sacrificed humor for more serious themes. I also found the line between charming cad and opportunistic leach to be blurred a little too much by Mr. Bilenski. Similarly, Cluny’s ill-advised courtship with the town pharmacist stretches her naive innocence into the realm of ridiculousness.
The casting is also a notch below many of the director’s earlier pictures, as Jennifer Jones and Charles Boyer pale in comparison to other prominent Lubitsch couples (or triangles, for that matter). Boyer comes across a little too much like a poor Frenchman’s Cary Grant and Jones is a tad too ditzy. Minor criticisms aside, I found nothing especially wrong in either’s performance, but more memorable actors might have elevated the film into another level. I never felt like either lead truly owned his or her role and there are probably half a dozen actors easily imaginable in each. (Although Jennifer Jones drunkenly writhing on a couch is perfectly fine by me.)
All that’s not to say that Cluny Brown isn’t a good film. It is, but it lacks much of the ethereal, almost intangible qualities audiences came to expect from the director. Lubitsch’s career was so rich that his lesser films are judged against some of the greatest light comedies ever made. I’m certainly not aware of other movies Twentieth Century Fox was cranking out in 1946 that are as fun and witty as Cluny Brown. It’s likeable enough to put a smile on the viewer’s face and has a sophisticated flair largely unseen in modern romantic comedies. Mr. Belinski may wear the same suit for much of the picture, but it’s an undeniably snazzy one.
The 1946 film was never released on VHS and is currently unavailable on DVD in R1, but the British Board of Film Classification has recently certified it for release by the British Film Institute in the UK. There’s also a French offering with fine image quality already available. In the United States, Fox Movie Channel airs the film from time to time in a relatively good print. It’s a deserving title (as are all Lubitsch films) and hopefully Fox, or Criterion if there’s enough interest, will put something out in R1 soon.
(Edit: I reviewed the BFI release in May of 2008 for DVD Times, and was much more impressed with the film after additional viewings.)
Heaven Can Wait August 4, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1940s, Ernst Lubitsch , 1 comment so far
In 1943, Twentieth Century Fox released Heaven Can Wait
Ameche plays Henry Van Cleve, a man who has recently died and is bargaining with the devil (played with wicked charm by Laird Cregar) for a spot in Hell. Van Cleve doesn’t think there’s any way he belongs in heaven after the things he’s done in his life. The movie takes us from a childhood crush on his French nurse up to his last years. The birthdays in between are used as jumping off points for each piece of Van Cleve’s life story. This is a perfect touch since birthdays, so joyous in youth, become representative of our advancing number of years lived as we get older. In this sense, Heaven Can Wait confronts the aging process head-on and we see Ameche transition from a young vibrant man to an elderly widower as the film progresses. In tow through much of the film is Charles Coburn, who steals scenes as Hugo Van Cleve, Henry’s grandfather. Despite being responsible for the family fortune, Hugo was never able to throw caution to the wind and is delighted to live vicariously through Henry’s playboy lifestyle.
It’s interesting to place the film in the context of when it was made in regards to World War II. Americans were at a patriotic feverpitch and Lubitsch gave moviegoers a wealthy, yet mostly charming lothario with few redeemable qualities. Van Cleve is, like most everyone, an unapologetically flawed character. Unlike many other movie characters, he’s not necessarily someone we want or would aspire to be. The reassuring aspect of the film is that, despite Van Cleve’s indiscretions, he still manages to have lived a good life and found a great woman who loves him. Surely we, the audience, have accomplished as much as Van Cleve and can hope to rest peacefully in the afterlife as well. Unlike the thematically similar It’s a Wonderful Life, Lubitsch’s film has a protoganist who hasn’t done the right things throughout his life. He’s made mistakes of character and, yet, he’s also brought happiness to others and redeemed himself at times.
The Criterion Collection’s excellent DVD displays the vibrant Technicolor beautifully. Films made with the Technicolor process are much more vivid and bright than subsequent color film techniques and they remain gorgeous to look at decades after they were made. For anyone interested, there’s a very entertaining and informative documentary on Technicolor found among the supplements of Warner Bros.’ two-disc special edition of The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn. Getting back to Criterion’s release of Heaven Can Wait, there are some nice supplements included such as a conversation between film critics Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell that provides a lot of good details and analysis about the film. It also has one of my favorite covers of any Criterion release. It’s admittedly somewhat odd-looking but I’ve really grown to love the cover since the DVD’s release last summer. All in all, it’s a terrific package that helps the viewer appreciate the film without reveling in mindless minutiae.
Films like Heaven Can Wait make us think about our own lives and legacies. The introspective viewer sees the life of Henry Van Cleve and starts to wonder how his own would measure up if such a devilish meeting ever took place. Van Cleve’s ultimate fate in Heaven Can Wait makes us feel better about ourselves and our lives. If you believe in an afterlife as a reward for the life lived on Earth, it’s nice to have movies such as this one to reassure us that no one’s perfect and we’re not expected to be either.
Design for Living February 26, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1930s, Ernst Lubitsch , add a comment
“Immorality may be fun, but it isn’t fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day.”
The “Lubitsch Touch” is an often cited cinematic gift that director Ernst Lubitsch employed to give his films an unparalleled wit and charm throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. Lubitsch directed comedies that still retain their vitality and charisma, sixty or seventy years after they were made. The characters in his films have a knack for light humor that exhibits wry sophistication without crossing the line to snobbery. I was not around when Lubitsch made films, but watching them makes me wish I were and that I could have been exactly like one of the many characters found therein. That, to me, is the “Lubitsch Touch.”
Design for Living came during an especially fruitful string of films for Lubitsch. The 1933 film followed Trouble in Paradise, a wonderful comedy about the debonair thief Gaston Monescu, and preceded another highly regarded film, The Merry Widow. Lubitsch and screenwriter Ben Hecht replaced the British characters from Noel Coward’s play with three Americans, all living in Paris. A young Gary Cooper plays the struggling painter, Fredric March is the playwright who “writes unproduced plays,” and Lubitsch favorite Miriam Hopkins is the object of both their affections. Edward Everett Horton, later to be the narrator of “Fractured Fairy Tales” on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, is Ms. Hopkins’ boss and suitor.
While Design for Living falls into the category of great films, what really sets it apart is how fun it is to see actual adult and grown-up comedy in a classic American film. It was made after the implementation of the Production Code, but apparently before it became as strict as it would be the next thirty-plus years. This allowed Lubitsch and Hecht to get away with Hopkins’ discussion about sleeping with Cooper the day before and, then, March earlier in the present day (!) and, also, for Cooper and March to make a “gentleman’s agreement” where the three would co-exist but with “no sex.” The whole film is filled with mature, yet almost screwball comedy that Hollywood has struggled to consistently produce for years, especially in today’s current cinema.
The performances here are all incredibly fun to watch. Cooper and March make a terrific team and really give the impression they’ve been great friends and have no intention of letting their attraction for Hopkins come between them, even if they can’t make good on their “agreement.” Miriam Hopkins is perfect here, as well, and makes the viewer see how two men can nearly break up a friendship over her affection. I’m really not sure why Hopkins never became a bigger star, but then again Hollywood was even more arbitrary back then than today in selecting its movie stars to feed into the movie machine. Regardless, this film, along with Trouble in Paradise show how lovely and sophisticated an actress she was. Edward Everett Horton also manages to be very funny when he needs to, never more so than when he’s attending March’s play in London and hears the line I’ve quoted at the beginning here, one which he had separately told both March and Cooper at the beginning of the film regarding their trysts with Hopkins.
Billy Wilder, who wrote the screenplay for Lubitsch’s film Ninotchka, often said that he tried to duplicate the “Lubitsch Touch” in several of his films and was never able to completely succeed. While Wilder almost always injected a knowing sense of cynicism into his comedies, Lubitsch chose to give his films an elegance and warmth that remains refreshing today. In my opinion, Lubitsch and Wilder were the best comedic filmmakers Hollywood has seen and I’m glad we have both of their films to enjoy for generations to come. I only wish the “Lubitsch Touch” would inspire more filmmakers to produce similar types of sophisticated comedies.
