The Shop Around the Corner

The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)

Two employees of a Budapest shop can’t stand each other but they are secretly falling in love as anonymous correspondents.

Angel (1937)

Angel (Ernst Lubitsch, 1937)

Woman and her husband take separate vacations, and she falls in love with another man.

While in Paris, a lady named Mrs. Brown/Mrs. Barker/Angel (Marlene Dietrich) meets a man (Melvyn Douglas) with whom she falls in love. However, back in London she has a husband (Herbert Marshall) that is a diplomat and a workaholic. They barely see each other. But one day at a race track the two men meet and Sir Francis Barker, the husband, invites Anthony Dalton, the secret lover, to stay under his roof. A series of hide and seek events will lead Barker to discover the truth. And at the end, back in Paris, Angel will have to choose between her lover or her husband.

With Marlene Dietrich in the title role and Ernst Lubitsch directing one could expect to have a great and sophisticated entertainment in the kind of the “Lubitsch touch” and the Dietrich legendary presence. But it is mostly an average romantic comedy that doesn’t have the wit and quality of the two stars’ other pictures. Despite a promising opening act, the pairing suffers from a poorly written script and an average cast of supporting characters portrayed by excellent actors. When acquainted to quality films like To Be or Not To Be, The Shop Around the Corner, Ninotchka, and Design For Living from Lubitsch Angel is clearly a letdown and one of his lesser Hollywood films.  

Angel being my last Ernst Lubitsch film on my quest at tackling down the 1000 Greatest Films of All Time by They Shoot Pictures Don’t They, it reminds me how I recently got into his films and now I have seen most of his major work. The list of Pantheon Directors is getting shorter everyday and I still have some films from John Ford, Fritz Lang, Josef Von Sternberg, Max Ophüls, F.W. Murnau, Robert Flaherty, and D.W. Griffith to watch before getting the job done and passing into another slice of the list. Still, so many great films to watch!

Heaven Can Wait (1943)

Heaven Can Wait (Ernst Lubitsch, 1943)

An old roué arrives in Hades to review his life with Satan, who will rule on his eligibility to enter the Underworld.

Continuing the quest into my first goal in film watching, to watch the entire list of the 1000 Greatest Films of All Time of TSPDT, and my mini quest into this objective, watch in priority the films of the Pantheon Directors as stated by the late Andrew Sarris in his reference book American Cinema. I had only two films from director Ernst Lubitsch to see. Along with Heaven Can Wait, I have Angel to catch sometime soon. This one being my number 527 on the big total of 1000 I am slowly getting through the list one title at a time. Then it’s 473 films to watch, it means that I’ll be blogging and watching movies for a long time. In the same time you have some retro reviews I’m constantly writing to try to cover every entry on this list. Of the 527 movies I’ve seen almost half the films have been reviewed here. To get to those films quickly I have a 1000gf label that you can click on and discover the many titles already reviewed. I’m planning a whole big post about this obsession some time soon.

Let’s get to the movie directed by Ernst Lubitsch,  of his films I’ve seen and loved to different degrees; The Shop Around the Corner, To Be or Not to Be, Ninotchka, Design For Living, and Trouble in Paradise. Everyone who gets into his films will sense something called the “Lubitsch touch”. Many have tried to imitate it or reuse it but no one was Lubitsch other than Ernst Lubitsch himself. This so-called touch is a balanced mix of comedy, witty dialogues, quirky behaviors, a sense for bourgeoisie, and something a little bit of chivalrous.

In Heaven Can Wait, Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche) arrives in Hades and must recall his life with the prince of darkness to see if he should be down in Hell or up in Heaven. Shot in bright colors and filled with superb costumes, the delicious dialogues and the subtle humor of the script makes this film a nice companion piece to a Max Ophüls film.

However, it felt a little flat for me and amongst the many Lubitsch films I’ve seen, this is my least favorite. The themes of a man loving beautiful women and getting to Hell for it seems a little conventional and too much Hayes coded. Far from being as great as Design For Living, his pre-code movie about a ménage à trois where two men a woman talk freely of sex, passion, and love. Heaven Can Wait is a little too sophisticated and of good taste in the filmography of our talented director.

At last, the role of Martha portrayed by beautiful brunette Gene Tierney is a much appreciated presence. Of all the beautiful young ladies in Heaven Can Wait she is the prettiest.

All in all, this average Lubitsch is not a torture and his lesser films are far better than any film from an average director. Recommended.

To Be or Not to Be (1941)

To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch, 1941)
The more we discover about Ernst Lubitsch’s films the more we can understand the Hollywood Cinema of today. His films of the 1930’s and 1940’s are the cornerstone of filmmaking. His comedies of the pre and post Code are hilarious and intelligent. Just watch his very efficient Ninotchka, Design For Living, The Shop on the Corner, and Trouble in Paradise to discover his range of work. The quality of the scripts and the sober “mise en scène” of his films are particularly noticeable. François Truffaut, in his book Les films de ma vie, made a great homage to this master from Vienna.

To Be or Not to Be tells the story of a theatre troop in Warsaw who escapes from the Nazis by portraying Generals, Professors, and the Fuhrer of the Third Reich. This comedy plays on many levels, first there is the main couple of the troop. Him, , thinks that he is the greatest Warsaw Theatre actor and her, Carole Lombard in her final role before her tragic death, has a secret lover while her husband is on the stage doing his monologue. Slowly the story gets mixed up and every character is asked to perform in a way to distract the Nazis and escape from what could be a horrible denouement. Even if some elements of the script are unlikely the moments of laughter are memorable as for some performances and lines.

Plus, it clearly influenced Quentin Tarantino on the writing of his Inglourious Basterds script especially the setting of the story and how a little group of individuals could resist and trick the Nazis. But, don’t forget the other influences from Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen, Sergio Leone, the original Inglorious Bastards, and many other films.

What’s strongly important to remember about Lubitsch’s film is how his comedies are strongly structured and how they play on many levels of stories and humour. Like Chaplin’s Great Dictator, To Be or Not to Be is a comedy mocking Adolf Hitler and his party, but the two films take this persona and make it a subject of laughter and derision. They happen before the discovery of the Holocaust and the seriousness of the situation excluded any pretext to make comedies about it. Those films witness how Hitler was perceived outside of Germany, in To Be or Not to Be the menace it represented is easily passed by to help the course of the story. Even today films like these couldn’t be done because the subject is still sensible and comedies turned to lighter subject and aren’t as politicized as they were at the time of these two great masters.

It is refreshing to watch To Be or Not to Be because it brings a different light on the perception of Nazi Germany. As horrible as this era was, the fictional treatment of these events is intelligent and appealing. I highly recommend this dashing film.

Merci YouTube!!! Part XI

The Shop Around the Corner de Ernst Lubitsch (1940)

Une excellente comédie romantique signée Lubitsch, un cinéaste dont j'aimerais voir plus de films et qui vaut vraiment le détour!

Bon visionnement!

A great romantic comedy from Lubitsch, a director that I'm looking forward to see more of his films!

Merci YouTube!!! Part VI

Un grand film de l'un des meilleurs cinéastes à avoir foulé le sol d'Hollywood, Trouble in Paradise de Ernst Lubitsch de 1932.


A Great film from one of the Greatest foreign directors that has make his way and his mark into the Hollywood brainwashing system; Ernst Lubitsch with his sublime Trouble in Paradise of 1932.