Recorded at the Historic Camelot Theater, Palm Springs, CA on May 26, 2024
TRANSCRIPT
(ALIECE PICKETT:) I want to be in their world.
(EDWARD SCHROEDER:) Lubitsch is a master.
His direction is tight.
Think about it, 82 minutes.
There is not one wasted moment in the film.
I see how Screwball Comedy emanates from Lubitsch and this film in particular.
To know Screwball Comedy, you need to see this, the genesis of many elements that later become hallmarks of Screwball Comedy.
>> AP: Let’s discuss those Screwball Comedy elements.
The Depression.
Lubitsch takes that on when he puts it in the words of the thief (Gaston), “Prosperity is just around the corner”, President Hoover’s mantra, as he turned down implementing social programs, saying everyone had to–.
>> ES: pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
He wouldn’t do anything to help them.
How ironic, the thief helps himself.
He pulled himself up by his bootstraps.
>> AP: He’s satirizing the government.
>> ES: Lubitsch took Hoover’s line and made it a punchline.
>> AP: You have a mis-matched couple with “Gaston” and “Madame Colet”.
The anti-hero thief you’re rooting for.
>> ES: You’re rooting for these two even though they’re despicable.
>> AP: Let’s discuss Ernst Lubitsch, our man of the hour and uncredited co-writer, producer, and director of the film.
What a style he developed.
Tell us about his background.
>> ES: He was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1892.
Unfortunately, he died young.
Growing up in his family business, he was the son of a tailor.
This movie in many ways, and his other masterpieces, are “tailor-made”.
Each scene is like a piece of garment put together.
He got an early start with Max Reinhardt.
Lubitsch got his start with Max Reinhardt’s Theater in 1911.
His first film was as an actor.
He worked as an actor for several years before he switched to being a director.
He knew film from both sides of the camera.
Mary Pickford brought him to the U.S., to direct her film “Rosita” in 1922.
In the 1930s he became one of the biggest directors.
He had several masterpieces besides “Trouble in Paradise”, “The Marriage Circle” (1924), “Design For Living” (1933), Molly Haskell’s choice when she was here with us.
He did “Ninotchka” (1939), “Shop Around the Corner” (1940), “Heaven Can Wait” (1943), “Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife” (1938), “Cluny Brown” (1946), and one of my favorites, “To Be or Not to Be (1942).
He died at 55, and these classic films weren’t appreciated by the American audience after they were first shown.
Even the actors thought what they were doing was a job, and when these films were done, that was it.
It took someone from the outside, the French New Wave directors, to look at our art form here and say “This is special.
This is something that should be re-examined, should be appreciated”.
Unfortunately, he had died before they had a chance to interview him, and analyze his films.
That’s the main reason he’s not as well known today.
>> AP: The Film Society’s job is to make sure his name is back.
Today’s newspaper article in the “Desert Sun” by Tracy Conrad gets him back in the forefront so we don’t forget this master.
>> ES: Think about his great mind.
He hung out with Einstein.
>> AP: That was a great picture, and wonderful article.
He had a style that was original.
He approached things in a way that nobody had before.
A critic said he “invented modern Hollywood”.
>> AP: Let’s discuss the “Lubitsch Touch”, originally a public relations term, used by his studio to publicize him.
It became part of the vernacular about film and Lubitsch.
It refers to many things, his style of making films, the economy of his filmmaking, the lyrical script.
>> AP: The metaphors, symbols, (objective correlatives), the way he used things, images.
>> ES: He had an inspiration from “A Woman of Paris” (1923).
Lubitsch had seen “A Woman of Paris”, Charlie Chaplin’s silent film.
In a scene after a couple broke up, the man returns to reunite with her.
In the scene, a man’s collar stay falls out of her top drawer.
There is a several second pause on the collar stay.
That’s all that needed to be said.
She had moved on.
Lubitsch was struck by the economy of what can be shown with a picture.
The old adage, a picture’s worth a thousand words.
You don’t need to beat the audience over the head.
They see something, they understand.
You don’t need to spell out 2+2=4.
Tell them 2+2, and the audience will figure out “=4”.
>>AP: We have diagrammed various definitions of the “Lubitsch Touch”.
Billy Wilder’s was that Lubitsch had told him personally to let the audience have fun with it.
Give them the tools, but don’t add it up for them.
Let them reach their own conclusions.
>> ES: At the time, the 1930s and 1940s, audiences would look for cues Lubitsch put in the movies.
>> AP: In preparation for today, you and I talked about listing some definitions (of the “Lubitsch Touch”).
Ed said it would be better to give a few examples of the metaphors.
The opening scene is of a distant locale.
Conventionally, you’d have an “establishing shot”.
If it’s Paris, you’d have an Eiffel Tower shot, and then go from there.
Lubitsch is different.
He’s going to do it originally and unconventionally.
He shows a man by a door with a dog, and an overflowing trash can.
The man carries the can and you realize he’s a trash man.
He throws trash out onto a gondola-barge filled with trash.
You connect it.
We’re at the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy.
>> ES: There’s suspense about the canal.
>> AP: Another example is the dinner scene, one of the best in the film.
It’s playful, clever, and romantic, an unconventional romance.
The characters are stealing from each other during dinner.
Mutual seduction is happening, and one-upmanship.
It’s fun.
>> ES: When “Gaston” goes to the door, locks it, closes the drapes for privacy.
You think he’s going to take her.
That would be what a conventional director would do, show the culmination of the seduction.
But no.
>> AP: He shakes her down until his wallet drops out of her dress.
Hilarious.
Then we have a unique scene where this relationship is developing between “Gaston” and “Madame Colet”.
For over a minute, the camera focuses on a clock while you hear snippets of conversation.
That’s it.
It’s bold, but it takes a master filmmaker like Lubitsch to have confidence to show just the clock.
The audience gets to put the pieces together, realize there’s something developing beyond his casing the joint for the future robbery.
>> ES: He went there to steal from her, but fell in love with her.
Part of his journey is being found out, the memory-recall of the robbery from “Filiba”, played by Edward Everett Horton.
>> AP: That was clever.
In a conventional film, you’d have melodrama and the “aha!” moment when he realizes who “Gaston” is.
Lubitsch just shows the chair with the gondola ashtray, then Edward Everett Horton’s face as “Filiba”.
We put it together.
>> ES: Filiba’s starting to realize that’s the man who impersonated a doctor and robbed him. Clever.
Building to the ending scene.
>> AP: It’s circular, they’re back where they started, stealing from each other.
In a conventional film, “Gaston” would reform and stay with “Madame Colet”.
Not here, not with Lubitsch.
The two thieves are getting away with the crime.
They’re not going to be punished.
They’re loaded, in love, stealing from each other, and still trying to one-up each other.
It’s a beautiful ending.
>>ES: “Madame Colet”, Kay Francis, looks matched with “Gaston”.
Conventional romance would show he’s reformed and pays his debt to society for what he’s done.
Not with Lubitsch.
He had an affinity for the “blonde chatterbox”.
He wanted to make sure his leading men ended up with the “blonde chatterbox” also.
I’ll let you in on something.
I have an affinity for a particular blonde chatterbox myself.
Let’s talk about the actors.
>> AP: Lubitsch brought out the best in his leads and character actors.
They had long careers, yet they’re best remembered for their Lubitsch films.
Kay Francis is breathtaking.
First, let’s acknowledge her Travis Banton gowns.
He was chief costume designer for Paramount.
His artistry is showcased beautifully on the beautiful actresses.
>> ES: Kay Francis was tall, gorgeous, and one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood at the time.
>> AP: Another movie from 1932, “Jewel Robbery” with Kay Francis and William Powell, is outstanding.
If you’re a William Powell fan and love “The Thin Man”, you can see he’s on his way to becoming “Nick Charles” in “Jewel Robbery”.
He plays a gentleman thief, and it’s delightful.
They make an excellent team, William Powell and Kay Francis.
They made seven movies together.
>>ES: Miriam Hopkins, the “blonde chatterbox”.
We loved her in “Design For Living (1933), earlier this season.
>> AP: She has Screwball Comedies she’s known for.
“Woman Chases Man” (1937), is fantastic.
And she got an Oscar nomination for “Becky Sharp” (1935).
>>ES: She developed the Screwball-heroine template.
>> AP: You see the attributes in this film.
You can see Carole Lombard falling in line, Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, all those who came after.
She’s a gifted comic actor.
>>ES: Before there was a Cary Grant there was Herbert Marshall.
>>AP: The audience may not know, that as graceful and elegant as he was, Herbert Marshall was disabled.
>>ES: His knee was shot in World War I, which ended up requiring an amputation of his leg up to his hip.
>> AP: Lubitsch cut the film so you see him, then a body-double run up and down the stairs.
You see him only taking a step or two.
His limp never shows.
He had an illustrious career, but never better than with Lubitsch.
Another Screwball he’s in is “If You Could Only Cook” (1935), with Jean Arthur.
We hope to screen it in a future season.
He plays an auto executive, and it’s so good.
Let’s talk about the superstar roster of supporting characters.
>>ES: They’re outstanding.
Charles Ruggles as “The Major”, Edward Everett Horton as “Filiba”, C. Aubrey Smith as “Giron”, Robert Greig as the butler.
We saw Greig in “Sullivan’s Travels” (1941), as the butler who gives that heartrending speech about poverty, imitating poor people, and how disrespectful it is.
He didn’t have the verbal-acting Preston Sturges gave him in “Sullivan’s Travels”.
Here, he has to grumble up and down the stairs showing he doesn’t like what’s happening behind closed doors.
And Leonid Kinskey, “Phooey, phooey, phooey!”, the Communist protestor, a recurring character-role he played.
>> AP: Finally, let’s discuss cinematographer Victor Milner.
He shot over 130 films, and was nominated for 10 Academy Awards.
He won, two years after this film, for “Cleopatra” (1934).
It’s understated, it’s beautiful, it’s not loud.
It doesn’t draw attention to itself.
>> ES: One of the memorable scenes is when “Gaston” and “Madame Colet” are kissing in the bedroom, he starts out with a mirror shot.
The (Production) Code wouldn’t allow somebody to sit on bed, let alone be in bed kissing.
So what does he do instead?
He shows a silhouette of them kissing on the bed, as she’s saying, “We have years to our future”.
>>AP: The camera wiping shots are fantastic, and carry the film along efficiently and beautifully.🎥
Film Society of Screwball Comedy®
Edited by Aliece Pickett
Copyright 2025