LUBITSCH MUSICALS

Details

• Release Year: 2006
• Genre: Documentary, Biography
• Plot: Renowned as a silent-film pioneer and the man who refined Hollywood comedy with such masterpieces as Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not to Be, Ernst Lubitsch also had another claim to fame: he helped invent the modern movie musical. With the advent of sound and audiences clamoring for “talkies,” Lubitsch combined his love of European operettas and his mastery of film to create this entirely new genre. These elegant, bawdy films, made before strict enforcement of the Hays morality code, feature some of the greatest stars of early Hollywood (Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins), as well as that elusive style of comedy that would thereafter be known as “the Lubitsch touch.”:; ; THE LOVE PARADE; Aristocratic 'Sylvanians' Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald (whose Hollywood careers were launched by this film) coo like doves and fight like cats in Lubitsch's salty-tongued smash, which brought movie musicals into the modern age. ; ; MONTE CARLO; Leaving her dandy prince in the lurch, Countless Helene (MacDonald) runs away to the card tables of Monte Carlo, where she soon finds herself gambling with more than money when her new hairdresser Rudolph (a count in disquise) takes a liking to her.; ; THE SMILING LIEUTENANT; Chevalier has the unfortunate task of choosing between his wild musician sweetheart Claudette Colbert and prissy princess Miriam Hopkins when the latter mistakes a wink and a smile as intended for her. ; ; ONE HOUR WITH YOU; Chevalier and MacDonald are a devoted husband and wife who test the sanctity of their marriage, as well as the limits of public lovemaking, in Lubitsch's remake of his own silent 1924 film The Marriage Circle.
• Cast: Nicola Lubitsch, Tom Tykwer, Michael Hanisch, Hans Helmut Prinzler
• Director: Robert Fischer
• Runtime: 6:06
• Media Format: Movie