Who knew that before Lubitsch was Lubitsch... he was Doctor Seuss? Yet my wife, passing by the TV as I watched The Wildcat, mentioned the same movie that had been on my mind-- that strange lone Seuss live-action film from 1953, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T.
The comedies in Kino's "Lubitsch in Berlin" DVD set are more funny-strange than funny haha, but the strange is so unique and striking that you may not mind that the humor tends to be on the goofy level of The Monkees TV show. The mature Lubitsch style is so consistently smooth and sophisticated that you'd never guess the same hand had been behind these wild, chaotic, lavishly cartoonish films, which look more like something made by a Tashlin or Jerry Lewis let utterly loose than a wry, sophisticated comedy of manners like Heaven Can Wait or Ninotchka.
The earliest films are the pair of short features starring one Ossi Oswalda, apparently known as the German Mary Pickford, though her knockdown comedic persona suggests Mabel Normand or other gals who blended right in with the boys at Keystone, and her rounded figure is somewhere west of Mabel and east of Fatty. The tone of the comedy is very much like Keystone or other American film comedy of the time-- aimed at mischievous 12-year- old boys of all ages, with comics going through the motions of dramatic situations, but not really investing any dramatic weight in sex, marriage, money, class or anything else grownup. But it's Keystone with sets by Max Reinhardt's theater, a level of rococo visual elaborateness utterly unlike any American film comedy.
In The Oyster Princess Oswalda's a spoiled American brat first seen smashing all the furniture in the room with great gusto. Her indulgent tycoon papa decides that what she needs is a titled European husband, and so they are led to a candidate in an impoverished prince living in a coldwater flat in New York. (The irony is that Lubitsch would shortly become professionally involved with an actress, Pola Negri, who was one of those who made marrying a prince standard silent diva behavior.)
The prince's valet is sent to check out the American heiress, but annoyed at his reception, eventually decides to play the part of prince himself. You can imagine this as the premise of a 30s Lubitsch comedy, sophisticated and delicately risqué about sexual attraction across class lines, but that would be nothing like the slapstick romp that follows, which is more like letting a manic four-year-old loose in a mansion. There's a great deal of running around to relatively little comic end, though frequently it's quite beautiful when, say, masses of servants march in lockstep through the fanciful sets. This visual invention-- which again calls up comparisons to graphic artists (Seuss, Cliff Sterett's abstract Sunday comics for Polly And Her Pals) more than any other filmmaker-- makes The Oyster Princess far more of a treat than its goofy clowning would be in a plainer-shot comedy.
MILD SPOILER AHOY: Interestingly, like Ford's Straight Shooting (which contains things repeated in The Searchers 40 years later), the movie ends with one of those perfect examples of a director first exploring a situation he would return to in his mature style-- wedding- night consummation as the climax (so to speak) of the plot.
This recurs in Lubitsch's The Smiling Lieutenant-- Chevalier, whose princess bride (Miriam Hopkins) has been a cold fish, has turned his interest elsewhere; while the frigid princess has finally warmed up (in fact she's rarin' to go) but can't seem to make him realize the fact. There the dramatic climax comes out of marital miscommunication, shyness versus worldliness, distinctly human emotions-- and it's one of the most touching examples of the Lubitsch Touch in action. Here's it's just an occasion for sniggering-- and the father ends the movie with a wink big enough for Beavis and Butthead to have gotten it seven blocks away. They're gonna do it, hehehe.
The comedies in Kino's "Lubitsch in Berlin" DVD set are more funny-strange than funny haha, but the strange is so unique and striking that you may not mind that the humor tends to be on the goofy level of The Monkees TV show. The mature Lubitsch style is so consistently smooth and sophisticated that you'd never guess the same hand had been behind these wild, chaotic, lavishly cartoonish films, which look more like something made by a Tashlin or Jerry Lewis let utterly loose than a wry, sophisticated comedy of manners like Heaven Can Wait or Ninotchka.
The earliest films are the pair of short features starring one Ossi Oswalda, apparently known as the German Mary Pickford, though her knockdown comedic persona suggests Mabel Normand or other gals who blended right in with the boys at Keystone, and her rounded figure is somewhere west of Mabel and east of Fatty. The tone of the comedy is very much like Keystone or other American film comedy of the time-- aimed at mischievous 12-year- old boys of all ages, with comics going through the motions of dramatic situations, but not really investing any dramatic weight in sex, marriage, money, class or anything else grownup. But it's Keystone with sets by Max Reinhardt's theater, a level of rococo visual elaborateness utterly unlike any American film comedy.
In The Oyster Princess Oswalda's a spoiled American brat first seen smashing all the furniture in the room with great gusto. Her indulgent tycoon papa decides that what she needs is a titled European husband, and so they are led to a candidate in an impoverished prince living in a coldwater flat in New York. (The irony is that Lubitsch would shortly become professionally involved with an actress, Pola Negri, who was one of those who made marrying a prince standard silent diva behavior.)
The prince's valet is sent to check out the American heiress, but annoyed at his reception, eventually decides to play the part of prince himself. You can imagine this as the premise of a 30s Lubitsch comedy, sophisticated and delicately risqué about sexual attraction across class lines, but that would be nothing like the slapstick romp that follows, which is more like letting a manic four-year-old loose in a mansion. There's a great deal of running around to relatively little comic end, though frequently it's quite beautiful when, say, masses of servants march in lockstep through the fanciful sets. This visual invention-- which again calls up comparisons to graphic artists (Seuss, Cliff Sterett's abstract Sunday comics for Polly And Her Pals) more than any other filmmaker-- makes The Oyster Princess far more of a treat than its goofy clowning would be in a plainer-shot comedy.
MILD SPOILER AHOY: Interestingly, like Ford's Straight Shooting (which contains things repeated in The Searchers 40 years later), the movie ends with one of those perfect examples of a director first exploring a situation he would return to in his mature style-- wedding- night consummation as the climax (so to speak) of the plot.
This recurs in Lubitsch's The Smiling Lieutenant-- Chevalier, whose princess bride (Miriam Hopkins) has been a cold fish, has turned his interest elsewhere; while the frigid princess has finally warmed up (in fact she's rarin' to go) but can't seem to make him realize the fact. There the dramatic climax comes out of marital miscommunication, shyness versus worldliness, distinctly human emotions-- and it's one of the most touching examples of the Lubitsch Touch in action. Here's it's just an occasion for sniggering-- and the father ends the movie with a wink big enough for Beavis and Butthead to have gotten it seven blocks away. They're gonna do it, hehehe.