By RAY KELLY
Film historian Joseph McBride, who has penned three books on Orson Welles, as well as tomes on John Ford, Frank Capra and Howard Hawks and other cinematic greats, explores the career of German American director Ernst Lubitsch in an upcoming book.
How Did Lubitsch Do It?, a critical study of the man behind Trouble in Paradise, Ninotchka, Heaven Can Wait, and more than five dozen other works will be published in June 2018 by Columbia University Press in New York.
McBride acknowledged that Lubitsch, who died in 1947 at the age of 55, is “largely unknown to the great majority of filmgoers, and his legacy is mostly neglected in today’s world of often crude, unsophisticated sex ‘comedy’ and romcoms.”
As Orson Welles said of him, Lubitsch ‘is a giant…. Lubitsch’s talent and originality are stupefying’,” McBride recalled. “Welles as a teenager adored Trouble in Paradise, and sought out (Lubitsch screenwriter) Samson Raphaelson, vainly trying to get him to help him get a break in his early days in the New York theater. ”
He added, “Lubitsch was also a favorite of many other great directors, including Billy Wilder (who had a sign on his wall reading, “How would Lubitsch do it?”), Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, Yasujiro Ozu, Jean Renoir, and François Truffaut. Renoir, who told Peter Bogdanovich that Lubitsch ‘invented the modern Hollywood,’ also commented, “His films were loaded with a kind of wit which was specifically the essence of the intellectual Berlin in those days. This man was so strong that when he was asked by Hollywood to work there, he not only didn’t lose his Berlin style, but he converted the Hollywood industry to his own way of expression’.”
McBride’s interest in Lubitsch dates back some 50 years when he caught a showing of the 1932 romantic comedy Trouble in Paradise at the University of Wisconsin.
“I thought, ‘I’ve just seen this guy’s masterpiece.’ Now, all these years later, after finally having seen every extant film Lubitsch directed — the 47 that exist in whole or in part, of the 69 fims he directed — I still feel that way about Trouble in Paradise. The dialogue by Samson Raphaelson is brilliant, the direction is impeccable and breathtakingly imaginative, the art direction is sublime, and the stars — Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins, and Kay Francis— exceed anything else I’ve seen them in,” McBride said. ” Best of all, this Depression-era comedy is both a sharp satire on the economic conditions of the times and a complex, bittersweet romantic comedy about a man torn between his love of two women. Lubitsch does not load the dice as love triangle films often do by making one of the women more appealing than the other. Both are equally alluring, and the problem is, as Maurice Chevalier sings in another Lubitsch film, ‘We can’t all three be satisfied.’ The essence of Trouble in Paradise is how men should treat women and vice versa. Lubitsch is a profound moralist in that sense, although he and his characters do not conform to conventional morality.”
McBride began working on How Did Lubitsch Do It? in 2009.
“I began thinking about writing it partly as a way of getting to see the many Lubitsch films that were difficult or impossible to see in the U.S. It bothered me for decades that I had missed so many of them! Even today, many have not been released on DVD or Blu-ray, and some of his German films have never been officially released in the U.S. (some rarities can be found on YouTube),” McBride said.
In 2010, McBride curated a complete Lubitsch retrospective for the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland. The festival then traveled to the Cinémathèque Française.
His research took him to Germany. where Lubitsch initially worked as an actor on stage and in silent films.
“I also visited Lubitsch’s family apartments and birthplace in Berlin and stood in spotlights on the stage of Max Reinhardt’s Deutsches Theater, where he served his apprenticeship as an actor. That was a great thrill,” McBride said. “It was an adventure for me writing about a different culture — I have largely specialized in writing about American cinema and history, so it was a healthy stretch for me to write about a man who straddled two cultures.”
While the book is not a biography, McBride unearthed many rare interviews and articles that helped illuminate Lubitsch’s unusual working methods and vibrant personality, as well as demonstrating how he adapted to and reflected the often tumultuous history of his times.
McBride hopes his upcoming book will raise Lubitsch’s profile.
“It’s probably too much to hope that the Lubitschean style of subtle comedy will ever become as dominant again as he once made it, but perhaps How Did Lubitsch Do It? will help influence audiences and filmmakers to want more than they have been getting from our recent romantic comedies.”
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How Did Lubitsch Do It? is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Columbia University Press and other online retailers.)
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