Wednesday 28 February 2018

That Uncertain Feeling (1941 Ernst Lubitsch)

The Lubitsch that seems unfairly neglected is like music, with its rhythms and sporadic outbursts of 'Keeks!', 'Phooey!' and the like. And seems only to exist in fuzzy, public domain prints, a great shame as George Barnes' lighting is clearly beautiful, in Alexander Golitzen's sets. Maybe one of the French or Spanish releases is better. Where's Criterion...?

I loved the Amazon reviewer who said "Too many one-room scenes with characters opening and closing doors" thus missing one of the delightful features of a Lubitsch comedy, which are always focusing on doorways.

"Really darling, you talk as if you've never been in a meadow."

"Was it a dull party?"
"No, I'd say she was about your size."

Victorien Sardou and Emilie deNajac's play 'Divorçons' (1883) was adapted by Walter Reisch and screenwritten by Donald Ogden Stewart who found fame mainly through adapting the work of others (won Oscar for the Philadelphia Story) - he emigrated to England in the 1950s Communist witch hunt, and died here.

No comments:

Post a Comment