Born Today January 29: Ernst Lubitsch

1892-1947

One of my own personal all time favorite directors Ernst Lubitsch was born on this day in Berlin, Germany.  Lubitsch's father was quite the successful tailor and wanted his son to follow him in the business. Ernst, having had a love of the theater from a young age, balked heavily at this and eventually entered theatrical work as an actor. Before long--by 1911--at the very young age of 19--he was a member Max Reinhardt theatrical company at the Deutsches Theater, under Reinhardt's full management.  This is important because, though not discussed often, the two men undoubtedly had an effect on each other in regard to film (topic for an interesting essay/article!).  Reinhardt was seen as very much a "theater man" through and through--his management business was a wild success. But in truth, Reinhardt had a deep interest in directing films; this no doubt was imparted to Lubitsch (Reinhardt would go on to actually direct a few films, no doubt spurred on by Lubitsch's success in the industry before him: tit-for-tat).  Given his beginnings in the theater, it then comes as no surprise that Lubitsch entered the film business in the capacity of an actor, which he did just a year after his full membership at the Deutsches. He appeared as "Speilman" in the medieval mystery The Miracle, an English language/UK production shot in Austria, in 1912 (the 1913 German film The Ideal Wife is often cited at Lubitsch's film debut).  It was not long before he also directed his first film, which he also wrote and starred in. The film was Miss Soapsuds (Fräulein Seifenschaum) was produced in 1914, when Lubitsch was just 22 (in the meantime, he made acting appearances in more the half dozen films).  In his earliest directing efforts, it was common for him to direct himself in prominant roles (it was almost as common for him to have personally written the script, many of which were comedic in nature).  This arrangement came to end when he started getting directing jobs on feature length films, around 1918. Though  The Eyes of the Mummy (1918), starring the delightful Pola Negri, is often cited as his break out film as director, it was pretty clear by his handling of the direction of The Ballet Girl (with the film I Don't Want To Be A Man separating them) that he had arrived as a director of serious merit.  By the time his Carmen, also starring Negri, was released later in 1918, he had well and truly arrived one the world stage as a serious talent in the crafting of films (it was only a matter of time before Hollywood took notice, though with some considerable help from the director himself). He would not make his Hollywood move until 1922, and he made a number of important features between Carmen and his Hollywood debut with Rosita in 1923.  Negri was a frequent lead and light fantasy elements were common. One of his surviving films from the time was The Doll; released in December of 1919 the film was based on an E.T.A Hoffmann story.  Another of his surviging German films is the over two hour long Deception (original title Anna Boleyn) starring Henny Porten and Emil Jannings based on the life of Henry VIII's ill-fated second wife.  But it was The Loves of Pharaoh (Das Weib des Pharao) in 1922 that was his crowning achievement during this portion of his career. Again starring Jannings in the lead, as the Pharao Amenes, the film was the first and only film made by his own production company Ernst Lubitsch-Film (the film was the subject of one of the most complicated restoration projects of the early 2000's).  He made just one more German film before making a permanent move to California. A much shorter production, The Flame (Die Flamme) was a melodrama based on a Hans Müller play released domestically in September of 1923.  

 

 

 

Despite that Lubitsch's Hollywood films would become wildly popular and highly regarded (garnering him Oscar nods by 1930), his relocation there was not seamless. Lubitsch had been intensly interested in making films in the U.S. ever since he saw an exdous of various European directors after World War I; he made a fact finding trip in 1921 and saw for himself the superiority of the equipment and facilities as compared to the increasingly struggling German film industry; but he was burdened with a heavy German accent (and completely ignoring his Jewish ancestry...), was not at all to the liking of Americans fresh off a war they had been drug kicking and screaming into. Lubitsch, however, was persistent and managed to get his foot in the door a couple of years later.  His first American film is a well known one. Rosita, which stars Mary Pickford, with Holbrook Blinn and Irene Rich in top supporting roles (the film exists and has been restored, no thanks to it's star; Pickford so disliked the film that she allowed her own personal copy of the film, the only known print at the time--to decay on purpose--a copy was found in Russia in 1960's however).  Though made for Pickford's production company, it was under the umbrella of United Artists for distribution, a connection that would be of help to him later on. He next moved over to Warner's to direct Florence Vidor in the comedy The Marriage Circle (February 1924); and the melodrama Three Women (October 1924) starring Pauline Frederick, May McAvoy and Marie Prevost. He finished up the year at Paramount (Famous Players-Lasky) directing the comedy Forbidden Paradise (November 1924) starring his old muse Negri. 

Lubitsch directing Forbidden Paradise [source: Paramount Pictures]

Continuing with his track of bringing comedic plays to the screen, he made two films in the vein in 1925 for Warner's. The first of these was Kiss Me Again (August 1925), starring Marie Prevost and Monte Blue, based on the play Divorçons by Victorien Sardou and Emile DeNajac (the film is now considered lost). He next directed a version of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, the film that many consider his silent masterpiece. The film stars May McAvoy and Ronald Colman with Irene Rich as the cunning and coy Mr. Erlynne. Wilde would not be anyone's first choice for source material in a silent film...his brilliant word play is what makes Wilde...well, Wilde right? This is what makes this film such a feat of direction on the part of Lubitsch. It's expertly done, story in-tact and superbly shot...and it is very much still with us today! 

Rich and McAvoy

Just one of the many rather perfect fades in Lady Windermere's Fan

In 1926, he next turned his directorial attentions to Halévy/Meilhac play Le Reveillon for his "roaring twenties" dance film (without the song) So This Is Paris starring Patsy Ruth Miller and Lilyan Tashman as a true to form "flapper," with a return performance by Monte Blue (Myrna Loy is also a cast member). Basically a remarriage comedy, the film features the extremely popular dance of the time the Charleston.  The New York Times voted it one of the best films of 1926.  

Lubitsch with his Paris cast.

Lubitsch's last silent film was The Student Prince in Old Heidleberg, a romance pairing up Ramon Novarro with Norma Shearer. Based on the popular Wilhelm Meyer-Förster adapted play Old Heidelberg, the film was made for MGM and Lubitsch was offered production credit.  For his first sound film, he moved over to Paramount to direct The Patriot, a partial silent, filmed completely as a silent with sound added in post-production. And talk about casting...Emil Jannings, Lewis Stone, Florence Vidor, Neil Hamilton....it's a strange line up. It also received multiple nominations for the Academy Awards, including for Best Director (it won for writing achievement). The film is also considered lost; in fact it is the only film within the Best Picture nominations list to have been lost. His next film, Eternal Love, was also a partial silent; with John Barrymore and Camilla Horn in the lead roles, it was produced by Joe Schenck's company and distributed by United Artists. This film survives and is availble; many fans of both Lubitsch and Barrymore cite it as a favoirite film. 

 

 

 

Lubitsch's last film of the decade was also his first full sound film. Back at Paramount, he produced and directed The Love Parade, not only his first full sound picture, but also a musical to boot. It would be the first of several for him. It was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Director and Best Picture. 

 

The Love Parade [source: MoMA]

 

The Love Parade

His first two films of the new decade were musicals, Monte Carlo (1930) and The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), he returned to non-music laden film making in 1932 with Broken Lullaby a story of war redemption starring the other Barrymore, Lionel. Form there, he returned to the musical form in his next film One Hour with You (1932). When I was growing up with morning and afternoon films on TBS, I remember watching his next film Trouble in Paradise (October 1932),  it was my introduction to Lubitsch, though I didn't know it at the time, I just knew I loved the film.  The other film that I also was introduced to on TBS was Ninotchka, a Lubitsch film starring Greta Garbo from 1939. I was introduced to these films just weeks apart, but in Lubitsch's career he had directed several films in the years in between, including Angel with Marlene Dietrich in 1937.  The lighthearted The Shop Around the Corner, with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan (and Frank Morgan!) was his first film of the 1940's. He made four films through mid-decade, including To Be or Not to Be, which would turn out to be Carole Lombard's last film. He did not have any films released between the years 1943 and 1946. His romantic war comedy Cluny Brown was released post-war June of 1946 and he then went to work on another musical starring Betty Grable. The Lady in Ermine, which also featured Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Cesar Romero would not only be his last film, it would be left unfinished at the time of his death. Lubitsch died of a sudden heart attack on the 30th of November in 1947. He was just 55 years old. Director Otto Preminger finished his last film, which was released on the 25th of September of 1948, nearly a year after his death. Hollywood was truly stunned by his death, a town that he had spurned him in beginning of his overtures had become a place that, for a moment, could not live without him.  He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. 

 

[Source: AJM (Find a Grave)]

 

 

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Born Today January 11: Monte Blue

1887-1963

Character actor Monte Blue was born Gerard Montgomery Bluefeather (some sources cite "Blue" as his birth sir name, but his father was of Native ancestry, Osage and Tsalagi [Cherokee], so it's possible either name could have been used--the original last name of the family was indeed "Bluefeather") on this day in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Montgomery and his four siblings grew up in a orphanage, in a home set up for orphaned children of soldiers (their father was a Civil War Veteran); this was occasioned by the sudden death of their father in a car accident and that their mother could no longer care for them on her own.  In addition to working a myriad of laboring jobs, from railroad worker to ranch hand, he also eventually got a higher education at Indiana's Purdue University.  Blue seems to have stumbled into the movie industry, making his film debut in 1915 as a hired extra in D. W. Griffith's infamous The Birth of a Nation as an uncredited extra/stuntman and as one of the many assistants to the director.  Though many next jump to his smallish role in Griffith's "apology" for Birth of a Nation Intolerance (1916) as his next role (and Blue's only other director's assistant credit), he in fact had at least 13 film appearances between the two films. His first actual named role came in his second film appearance--that of "Ignorance" in Christy Cabanne's lost epic The Absentee (1915).  It was also during this time that Blue appeared in his first western--a genre that would become his trademark (see The Wild Girl From The Hills (1915), a short western that partnered Blue up with Francis Marion).  While Griffith's Orphan of the Storm is often cited as the next big production in which he appeared, Blue was in fact in a named cast member of DeMille's 1918 remake of his own The Squaw Man.  He had also starred in lesser productions; see, for example, The Ship of Doom--a Wyndham Gittens production from 1917.  Orphans was, though, his big "breakout role."  After this, he was solidly considered leading man material and cast as such.  For the most part, his film career in the 1920's was spent in a series of romantic leads; frequent co-stars of his during this time were Mae Murray and Marie Prevost.  One of my personal favorites is Ernst Lubitsch's So This Is Paris (1926); though many feel that his best silent performance came two years later in White Shadows in the South Seas, though the film had a partial sound version making it the first film in which he appeared with talking sequences (it is also MGM's first sound film--that version was limited and premiered with special equipment at Grauman's Chinese Theater--it was also the first time that MGM's famous lion roared in full sound). Blue was under contract with Warner's for most of the decade, and was merely "loaned" out to MGM for White Shadows. When he returned to Warner's, his next film--Conquest (1928)-was the first full sound film that he made (with sound by Vitaphone).  Though he did return to silent acting in 1929, appearing the B-grade Central American action adventure From Headquarters.  He was also a participant in the all-star 2 hour musical revue Show of Shows--along with nearly every other Warner's contract performer.  His last film performance released in the 1920's was a Rin Tin-Tin film Tiger Rose, which also starred Lupe Velez.  While his first film of the new decade was Isle of Escape, which was made with Myrna Loy, whom he'd worked with previously in the 20's. He was one of the few a-listers of the silent era to smoothly make the transition to sound. All was not necessarily hunky-dory in life however; Blue lost almost all of his investments in the stock market crash of 1929. And, like a lot of silent stars that got their start in the teens, he was largely playing either bit parts in films or appearing in poverty row films by the late 1930's.  Many of these were westerns, which would be the key to the second half of his long career; as his film appearances in the 1940's was almost exclusively in westerns. There were, however, a few very notable exceptions--the most famous of which comes in his roll of Sheriff Ben Wade in John Huston's Key Largo in 1948. But, aside from a few roles in films noir, it was largely back to westerns for Monte. His television debut came in 1952 in the recurring role of Sheriff Hollister in, you guessed it, a western series, Sky King. From then on, aside from a few scant film roles, Blue stayed largely in the television business.  He made appearances in the likes of: Death Valley Days, The Lone Ranger, Rawhide, and, of course, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin.  His last acting role came in the series Pony Express episode The Search in 1960. In the later half of his life, Blue as a very active Mason and he spent the last three years of his life basically working in this capacity.  While in Milwaukee on business, he died suddenly of a heart attack brought on my by a virulent strain of flu on the 18th of February.  He was returned to California and his ashes were interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park at Glendale.

               

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Born Today February 21: Henri Meilhac

1831-1897

French dramatist and librettist Henri Meilhac was born on this day in Paris.  He got his start in writing at a young age, when he went to work writing free-lance works of fancy that he sold to various Parisian newspapers; he also began to write comedy skits for the vaudeville stage.  Somewhere around 1860, he made the acquaintance of fellow writer Ludovic Halévy--their writing collaboration would last for over 20 years.  While he is most famous for co-writing the libretto for Bizet's Carmen, he did work on other librettos and also wrote stage plays--all of which have provided source material for motion pictures.  The very first film to be produced from Carmen was a very early experimental sound film that was produced in 1907.  Carmen (1907) was a British film produced by Gaumont British Picture Corp. and used a sound mix called Chronophone.  The process involved synchronizing sound on vinyl with the action of the film.  It is a short film; lasting only 12 minutes. The first all silent film to use his writing for a scenario came in 1912 with the Italian produced Mam'selle Nitouche; that film was based on the libretto to the operetta of the same name.  In all 11 films using his solo and collaborative work were produced in the silent era. The last of these was the Ernst Lubitsch directed So This Is Paris (1926).  The first sound era film to use his work came in 1931 with the German production of Mam'selle Nitouche.  The latest filmed performance of his work, was in 2015 with The English National Opera's performance of Carmen.  Meilhac died in Paris on July 6 in 1897 at the age of 66.  He is buried in Paris' Montmartre cemetery.

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