Born Today October 6: Janet Gaynor

1906-1984

Born Laura Augusta, with either her last name spelled Gainor or Gainer, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, she was nicknamed "Lolly" as a child.  Her father was a theatrical painter and paperhanger; it was he that began to teach her song and dance, as well as acrobatics when she was just a toddler.  When she entered school, she then began to act in school plays.  After her parents divorced and her mother remarried, the family eventually settled in San Francisco. When she graduated from high school there, she began doing stage work in Melbourne, Florida while on winter vacation. Upon her return to San Francisco, the whole family moved to Los Angeles so she could be pursue a career in acting.  She, accompanied by her stepfather, began to present herself at studios there, where she eventually landed a role as an extra in a Hal Roach film.  The film was Cupid's Rustler, the year was 1924.  She continued to get work in roles as extras regularly until 1926, when she began to get small roles that she credited for, the first of which was The Johnstown Flood, a Fox film that she was hired for after Fox offered her a screen test. By 1927, she had blossomed into one of Hollywood's leading ladies.  She played a lead role as "The Wife" in F. W. Murnau's 1927 feature Sunrise, for which she won one of the very earliest Oscars, in the category of Best Actress in a Leading Role--she was the very first winner for this category.  She also won for her role in Street Angel (a partial sound film).  The award, which was presented in the year 1929, combined the work.  Another interesting fact is that she was only 22 years of age at the time; she would remain the youngest actress to win in the category until 1986, when at 21 Marlee Matlin won for Children Of A Lesser God.  Her first full sound film came in 1928 with 4 Devils, which had an alternative silent print, and was also directed by Murnau. By 1929, she had made the transition to speaking roles and even starred in a film with early color sequences (Sunnyside Up).  By the age of 33, she had been making films for almost 20 years and had made up her mind to retire, which she did in 1938.  After this, she worked sporadically, and almost entirely in television.  She found a new profession is painting however, becoming very accomplished in still life depictions of flowers and vegetables.  She finally made her professional stage debut in 1980!  She worked in the theater for 2 years.  In September of 1982, a taxi in which she was a passenger was struck by a van that had run a red light; she was left with several very serious injuries, including 11 broken ribs.  She passed away 2 years later on 14 September; with her long time doctor declaring that her death was brought on by the accident, from which she had never fully recovered.  She is buried in the famous Hollywood Forever Cemetery.  [For anyone that interested in visiting, it is located in the Garden of Legends section, Lot 193)

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Born Today October 4: Jeremias Gotthelf

1797-1854

Writer Jeremias Gotthelf was born Albert Bitzius in the Swiss town of Murten into a family of the church.  His father was a pastor.  In 1804 the family moved to the small village of Utzendorf, where his education began.  In 1812, he moved to Bern to complete his education, where he, in 1819, became a founding member of the Student Society Zofingig--it is the second oldest fraternity in Switzerland. In 1820, he became a pastor--the professional that he would remain in for the remainder of his life.  He began writing later in life, publishing under the carefully held pen name of Jeremias Gotthelf, who, it was contended, was a real person--though this is probably not the case.  His best known work is Die schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider), an allegorical fantasy horror tale involving a story of the plague told through the vehicle of a monster who has made a pact with the devil.  It is this work that we are concerned with here in regards to silent film.  In 1921 the German film company Turma Film made a film based the novella that was released on the 8th of August. The page for it on IMDb can be found here.  The most recent version of this story (and apparently the most recent film based on his work) came in 1983, with a Swiss production company, IMDb page here.  Bitzius (aka Gotthelf) died in the Swiss town of Lützeflüh on the 22nd of October in 1854, leaving behind a large influential ecclesiastical philosophy in the German speaking regions of Switzerland.  He was 52 years of age.  He is buried in the town cemetery there.

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Countdown To Halloween: Melies' The House Of The Devil (1896)

Widely believed to be the first horror movie made.

Born Today October 3: Alphonse Winckler

1839-1925

Winckler was born on this date in Champanole France. He appears, along with 3 other men in one of the early Lumiére Brothers shorts from the 1890's.  Partie d'écarté or The Messers. Lumiére at Cards (or Men Playing Cards as an alternative English title) was produced in 1896 and lasts for less that 1 minutes.  Most of the cast is made up of members of the Lumiére family.  The film appears as No. 73 in the Lumiére catalog.  The still above is from the film.  Winckler appears to be the man who is standing.  Additionally, the Lumiére catalog lists him as appearing in the title number 48 Embarquement pour la promenade, but he is not currently credited with that on IMDb. Winckler died at the age of 82 on 21 April 1925 in Lyon, the home town of the Lumiére production facility.  

Born Today (Not So Silent Edition) October 1: Henry Clay Work

1832-1884

American composer Henry Clay Work was born in Middleton, Connecticut to an abolitionist family.  The family's property actually became a stop on the Underground Railway.  Naturally talented in music, he was a completely self taught musician and songwriter.  During his lifetime, he worked in many aspects of the music profession.  By the time he was in his early 20's, he had found work as printer in a shop that specialized in setting musical type.  As it turns out, the sound of the machinery as it worked away, helped him keep time to musical compositions that he wrote in his head and committed to memory.  He also had an ear for dialectical speech, using many negro wordings and terms that he over-heard from slaves passing through his parents property--he also had a fondness for Irish speech of the English language.  This wound up being the reason that many of his songs became popular with late 19th century minstrels--and later became associated with the disgraced black face song and dance routine.  There is not a shred of evidence that he was even slightly racist, however; he did grow up at stop for the smuggling of slaves from the south to help them to Canada and freedom.  Most of his compositions were intended to bolster the Union.  He was also known for penning at least one composition that became an anthem of the temperance movement. One of his compositions made it into an early all sound musical short film in 1929.  "Kingdom Coming" was featured in Paul Tremaine and His Aristocrats, a 9 minute film featuring the jazz group playing several popular tunes of the time (sound by Vitaphone).  Later in 1929, that same song was featured in a black and white Mickey Mouse cartoon entitled When The Cat's Away (sound here provided by the little known Powers Cinephone Sound System).  He is most well known for being a songwriter that sold a million copies of a song in 19th century--quite the feat at the time.  Most recently his "Marchin Through Georgia" was featured in the 2013 film Saving Lincoln.  Work passed away on the 8th of June in Hartford, Conn. at the age of 51.  He is buried at Spring Grove Cemetery in Hartford.  Read more about his musical career at Wikipedia (listed below).

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Born Today September 30: Frederick Sleigh Roberts

1832-1914

The subject of early documentary newsreel style films, Lord Roberts, was born in India into a prominent Anglo-Irish military family.  Eton educated, he later attended Addiscombe Military Seminary, before entering the East India Company Army as a Second Lieutenant.  He eventually rose all the way to Field Marshall and served as the Commander in Chief of the Forces for the British Military.  He later became the 1st Earl Roberts.  Starting in 1899 he was featured in a number of short documentaries by various early British film companies performing various official duties.  The first of these was Lord Roberts Unveils Statue of Queen Victoria by the Hepworth company.  He continued to be the subject of, and in, such shorts right up until a year before his death; the last of which was England's King at Liverpool (1913), produced by the Kalem company.  On the 14th of November 1914 he passed away from pneumonia in St. Omer, France at the age of 82.  His body lay in state before he was given a state funeral and buried at St. Paul's Cathedral.  He is only one of two non-royal individuals to lay in state in the 20th century; the other being Sir Winston Churchill.  For more about his extensive life, see the Wikipedia link below.

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Born Today September 20: Kermit Maynard

1897-1971

Actor, stuntman and body double Kermit Maynard was born today in Vevay, Indiana.  Growing up in a family of five siblings (including older brother Ken who went into movies before him, and for whom he served as a body double--despite their age difference, most in Hollywood assumed they were identical twins).  As a young man, he attended college at Indiana University and played as a linebacker for the Hoosiers in the early 1920's.  Also while there, he played baseball and basketball, but in the end, he did not graduate. At some point along the way, he worked for a time as a meat packer for the Hormel company. He also found work a local circuses.  He later followed his rodeo veteran older brother into moving pictures in Hollywood by early 1927.  The first film that he appeared in was Prince of the Plains, where he was cast as the star and credited (as he would be in all the silent film in which her appeared) as "Tex Maynard."  In all, he made 6 films in the silent era under his "stage" name.  In then doesn't appear again in a film until 1930, when he took an uncredited role in the all talking Rin Tin Tin film The Lone Defender.  He never went by the name "Tex" again.  This is also the film in which he began to appear as a stunt man, a career which spanned even longer than his acting career.  In addition to his own older brother, he worked as an action double of a number of other western actors.  Throughout his long career,  he appeared in over 280 films and television episodes up to the year 1962, when he retired.  Maynard passed away in North Hollywood on 16 January 1971 of a heart attack, 2 months before his older brother Ken passed in March of the same year.  He was 73 years of age.  He is buried in the Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.  

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Born Today September 19: Ben Turpin

1869-1940

Bernard Turpin was born today in New Orleans, LA the child of a candy store owner.  Having been born long before the invention of the moving picture, he obviously got his start on the stage; which in  his case came in the form of various traveling shows.  He possessed a body type and face that lent itself to comedic work, with one of his eyes permanently crossed (later in his life, he famously--and comically--took out an insurance policy with Lloyd's of London in case his eyes straightened out), and an oversized handle bar mustache.  In the early days of his career, he found work in circuses, vaudeville and burlesque.  He developed an exaggerated form of physical comedy that laid the ground work for what we now call "slapstick;" and was this talent that eventually got him into the motion picture business.  He made his film debut in 1907 in a comedic short that he was specifically cast for:  An Awful Skate, or, The Hobo On Roller Skates.  From this point onward, he starred in a series of slapstick comedy shorts, making him a huge star of the silent cinema, even playing roles such a "The Tramp" long before one Charlie Chaplin would take up that comedic identity. In fact, the company that introduced Turpin to the moving image was Essanay, who would later employ Chaplin, who became their biggest star until his departure bankrupted the studio.  This is when things began to deteriorate between Turpin and Essanay.  As soon has they hired Chaplin, they made Turpin his comedic side-kick, setting up his characters as mere foils for which Chaplin could play off of.  Turpin was naturally insulted by this.   In 1917 he went to work for the king of comedy Mack Sennett. Turpin signed a very lucrative contract the the Mack Sennett Studios.   Much to Turpin's delight, he quickly became one of their biggest stars; so much so, that he began to introduce himself as "I'm Ben Turpin, I make $3000 a week!"  He worked steadily up through the invention of talkies, at which time--owed to good investments--he chose to retire from the industry, rather than attempt to make the transition to talking cinema.  Still, he was sought out for cameo comedy appearances in films regularly.  In 1935 he, and other stars from the silent comedy era (including Chester Conklin and Ford Sterling), starred in Keystone Hotel; it was his only starring role in the sound era.  The last film that he appeared in, very briefly, was Laurel and Hardy's Saps At Sea (1940).  He was set to make a cameo appearance in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940), but Turpin died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 70 on the first of July before filming started.  He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA.  

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Sexual Innuendo In Ernst Lubitsch's Lady Windemere's Fan (1925)

This post is part of the 2nd Annual SEX! (Now That I Have Your Attention) Blogathon, hosted by Steve over at MovieMovieBlogBlog (wado/thanks for hosting!).  For other really good reads, please click here.  Wado/thank you for reading!
Spoilers ahead!

The sexual innuendos in this silent treatment of an Oscar Wilde comedic play are thick and over-laided, especially in the first two acts. Directing such a wordy writer as Oscar Wilde during the silent era posed specific challenges that often didn't pan out well in the finished product.  In many feature length films, the witty repartee and playful sexual dialog of Wilde was dealt with many, many inter-title cards, often lacking in any kind of corresponding imagery in the part of film that actually showed actors "acting."  This often made for clumsy films that taxed viewer's eyesight and just plain bored people.  In fact, an earlier film version of the play had been made in 1916 and so heavy with title cards that it was panned by the big critics of the time--and was a complete flop.  German director Lubitsch (who had come to Hollywood in 1922 at the bidding of Mary Pickford); knew of this and was determined to approach the play in film form in whole new way.  The question then became how to get across in active imagery, what actors of the stage would actually say, without the use of an intrusive number of dialogue cards.  Lubitsch masters this well!  He employed whole host of not so subtle devices, along with actual acting--he directed the actors to actually say their lines, while interacting with the stage props (many of which were written into the play's direction in the first place).  This resulted in a light-hearted melodrama, filled with fun "winks winks/nudge nudges."  It is so free of dialogue cards that the viewer almost forgets they are needed to advance the plot.  

Wilde's play is a kind of "comedy of remarriage" in the same ilk as films such as His Girl Friday and The Awful Truth, which rely on frame stories to set up perimeters in which the action can play out.  In this case, it's with a long lost mother "returning" to her native London, after reading that her daughter has married one Lord Windemere in a newspaper abroad.  Mrs. Erlynne as she is known (played deliciously by the very talented Irene Rich) is obviously a woman with a shady past; and she wastes no time summoning Lord Windemere to her lavish rooms that she's let in London, with the purpose of blackmailing him.  She's determined that her past, in this case, will no longer plague her--she sees the perfect opportunity to capitalize on it.  Almost immediately the sexual jesters start.  The first thing that Mrs. Erlynne does when she sees her son-in-law Lord Windemere (Bert Lytell), is motion him over to a sort of settee, placed under a window in her sitting room; in point of fact it looks more like what we would call a "day-bed" these days.  Windemere is incensed and insulted; he knows nothing of this woman and is recently married.  Mrs. Erlynne, on the other hand, looks as though she a cat that just swallowed the proverbial canary, but laughs it off.  She then proceeds to tell him who she really is.  Again, he is outraged--demands proof--which she provides; he then looks confused and a bit afraid.  It is at this time that we find out that he is familiar with his wife's background, including that she is obviously the product of some sort extra-marital affair.  He reminds her that her daughter had been raised to believe that her birth mother is dead.  Mrs. Erlynne demands to be let back into her daughter's life; the Lord then falls quickly into her trap.  He soon cottons on to what she is really after--his cheque book.  He sits down at her writing desk and begins to write out a check, that starts with £5....Mrs. Erlynne gets a look of slightly evil ecstasy on her face, as if she believes he is about to hand her £5000.  This look is not subtle at all, it clearly sexual excitement over successful blackmail and love of ill-gotten gains.  Clearly, she is not new to this game.  When the cheque comes out £500 instead, she gives him a look of forlorn regret; it's pure artifice, of course.  He is quickly persuaded to add a 1 in front of the 5.  Now, keep in mind that this is not a one time payment--it's a monthly "arrangement." (This comes to around £17,500 per month in today's money!)  It does not take long about for the gossip to begin!  And so the stage is set.

Fast forward several months to a horse-racing track.  The Windemere's are there with a complete party of on-lookers.  Enter Mrs. Erlynne.  It takes little time for practically the entire park to notice that she is there.  Surely she has some rich man in her bed?!  But who?  None of this is actually placed on a title card, Lubitsch needs only to have ladies hissing into each other's ears, talking behind fans and handkerchiefs, and wincing when they train their eyes on her. Caught in the middle of this soup of gossip and assumption is Lady Windemere (May McCoy), who is the only person in high-society London to have not heard the rumors.  This does not last long. The whispers get louder behind her and finally someone says something directly to her about this woman with a mysterious income.  All of this is all conveyed with actual acting, which give a depth to the resentment on the part of those engaged in gossip; gives the pangs of pain on the part of Lady Windemere's face a great deal of honesty.

Seated right behind Lady Windemere, next to her husband, is one Lord Augustus Lorton (Edward Martindale).  One of the scarce title cards announces that he is the most eligible bachelor in town.  On the other side of Lord Darlington sits another member of the gentry, Lord Darlington (Ronald Colman).  It is clear that he has some sort of design on Lady Windemere; he stares intensely at her, especially after the gossip stings her ears, to see how she is reacting.  There is not one doubt that his gazes are penetrating; and the he has some plan forming in his mind when it comes to this young married, and upstanding, woman.  Again Lubitsch manages to get great performances from his actors, and their performances relay all the feelings, be they:  hurt, embarrassed, stung, exposed, designing, completely.

Darlington, clearly not happy with the married couple in mid-kiss!

What happens next is surprising, only because the viewer doesn't see it coming.  Amongst the antics of the gossips and harpies, we barely notice Lord Lorton admiring the visage that is Mrs. Erlynne.  When she leaves the track early, out of embarrassment, he follows her.  This is the part of the film where Lubitsch employs his most clever special effects to be seriously suggestive.  We see Lord Lorton following her, catching up to her a little more with each step; and then screen begins to blacken out from right to left--at first just a little, then more and finally complete fade to black.  The viewer is left to think "okay, what are those two about to get up to??"

As it turns out, he is only attempting to discover her place of residence.  He reaches her door and hesitates, we have a witty title card, throwing in some actual Wilde on the nature of gentlemen ringing a lady's doorbell; and finally, his stiff extended fore-finger (another suggestive) and the pushing of the bell.  He gains admittance and is shown into the same sitting room as Lord Windemere had reluctantly became the victim of blackmail.  Again Mrs. Erlynne waves toward the window settee--this time Lord Lorton accepts quickly; well for it's day, that would have been shocking to audiences.  What happens next, would have only intensified that shock.  When sitting down, Lord Lorton offers her a cigarette (though Lubitsch updates the timeline of the story to the 1920's, it was still frowned upon for women to smoke, especially in mixed company), she accepts and begins to tease the end of the cigarette with mouth, all the while staring at the Lord sitting next to her.  After this, we get one of those rare title cards, that reads "But when the relation becomes more friendly___"--clearly we are meant to speculate on what exactly is meant by "friendly"--and what is with that dash??

Lord Augustus Lorton

The next live action that we see is Lord Lorton frantically ringing Mrs. Erlynne's bell with impatience; walking in quickly and hanging his hat, cane, and over coat inside her residence with extreme familiarity.  Upon his easy entrance (almost as if he were in his own residence) to her sitting room, we see her puffing away on a cigarette in a very "un-ladylike" manner.  He takes the cigarette from her and puts it out in her ash tray; there he sees a barely smoked cigar and gives her a surprised and disappointed look.  Now the cigar becomes immediately suggestive because it hasn't be cut for smoking (what some cigar smokers call "circumcising" of the role).  As Lorton gets more and more jealous and, she becomes desperate to stem his anger and stave off his leaving her, she retrieves a band from his own brand of cigar and gently slips it over the cigar--another strikingly suggestive visual moment.  She then saunters over to him, to take a cigar from his own pocket holder-again this is done easy and suggestive familiarity.  He becomes convinced and accepts her explanation. From here the film shifts gears significantly. It follows from the fast paced "swinging" woman about town, to the arena domesticity in the Windemere household.

Suddenly, it is the morning of Lady Windemere's birthday, the first of her married life.  Her husband escorts her to a room full of gifts, which included all manner of expensive gifts of jewelry; but the gift that he saves for last is a fancy, but still simple, fan.  She is delighted with it.  Lord Darlington then arrives; not fearing anything, her husband then leaves his wife alone with his old friend.  The playful sexual props may have disappeared, but the domestic drama that takes over is no less thin on sexual matters. We now have a marriage at stake, and this finally puts a mother's instincts into play for the first time since a now grown and wedded child was born.  

Lord Darlington and Lady Windemere

The title of the film would lead one to think that the fan would be a major sexual innuendo of the story, but it shows up past the half way point in the film.  It's not that the film leaves off being interesting after the fast and furious sexual suggestions in props earlier on; quite the contrary, it then moves on from an arena playfulness, into one of real peril for the heroine of the film. Lord Darlington sees Lady Windemere's birthday as the pivotal moment to make his move.  It becomes obvious that he has been slinking around; spying on Lord Windemere.  Having been left alone with her in her own sitting room filled with morning light and gleaming with presents, talk turns to a party being thrown for her that night.  Darlington, sitting with her, gives her the same look that we saw at the racetrack.  We know something coming.  He pounces on this chance and asks to show her something outside and guides her the window.  Outside we see Lord Windemere dismiss his own car, cross the street and get in a cab, which soon pulls away.  There, he's done it--he asks her what kind of man dismisses his own car?!  He then "sets the hook" by suggesting that she check her husband's writing desk, which is suspiciously locked.  Having gotten the drawer open, it contains many cashed cheques made out to Lady Erlynne.  She is devastated.

A declaration of love

A finally it comes, his out and out declaration of love.  What he means by "love" is still unclear however.  What is clear, is that Lady Windemere is put in a really delicate situation and, he pesters her further over why she would want to stay with a cheating husband.  With her birthday party looming, she is left to wonder how she will go forward in life.  Meanwhile, the scene suddenly shifts back to Mrs. Erlynne's sitting room.  Lord Windemere is there handing off the monthly money; she ambushes him with a request, really more of a demand, to attend her daughter's party.  He at first resists, but soon gives in.  He returns home, unbeknownst to him, to a very upset wife.  He tells her that he's invited Mrs. Erlynne to her party, insisting that she is indeed of woman of quality.  There is no way that he can know that this is the LAST thing he should be saying, or indeed, doing.  Understandably his mortified wife explodes and demands that the invitation never be sent.

Cut to the party.  Lady Windemere seems to have calmed down and is enjoying her evening with friends and family.  Meanwhile Mrs. Erlynne is growing inpatient at her residence waiting for an invitation that will never come.  Fed up, she decides to crash her daughter's party, sure that some mistake kept the invitation from arriving.  However, upon her entry to the Windemere house, she is told she is not on the invitation list.  She is at first mortified and then sad.  At this point, who should enter, but Lord Lorton, who is late for the party  He is brimming with joviality and is genuinely happy to see her there.  He then, on the quality of his name, secures her entry to the party.  

When she is announced, Lady Windemere is shocked.  May McAvoy who plays the Lady, does a good job of pulling off a look as if she had actually been hit with a real electric shock.  Lord Windemere seeing and hearing a hush spread across the room, springs to action and begins to introduce Mrs. Erlynne around the room.  Before long she is introduced even to gossip harpies, who, one by one, sit down with a chat with her; they each find her to be perfectly pleasant.  Things seems to calm.  Lady Windemere, however, decides she needs some air and steals out into the garden.  While there Lord Darlington ambushes her and repeats his declarations of love and adoration to her. The suggestive moment here comes when he takes her fan in one hand, while touching her hand with his other, while pleading his love for her.

She rebuffs him and moves out into the garden itself.  Darlington shrinks away.  Mrs. Erlynne, now being this close to her child, cannot help but step out to admire her from afar as she paces around in he garden.  Lord Lorton cannot help but follow her out there to woo her actually for a marriage proposal.  Unfortunately, he does this from behind a large bush; so when Lady Windemere looks up, she sees to her shock Mrs. Erlynne staring at her, with the arm outstretched to an unseen admirer, the Lady assumes that the man behind the bush is, in fact, her husband.  She's had enough.  She makes for Lord Darlington house, with the intent to stay the night with him.  She soon gains admittance.  Unknown to her, Mrs. Erlynne has discovered the note she has left for her husband informing him that she is leaving him for Darlington.  She then confiscates the note and plays up a sham that Lady Windemere is not feeling well and has gone to bed.  She then makes for Darlington's house and soon let in.  At this point one does have to wonder what sort gentlemen Lord Darlington really is; if women can be so easily admitted to his house while he is away, what must say something about his prior behaviors and activities....

When the young lady sees the woman she has no idea is her mother in Lord Darlington's house she is at first insensed and dismissive.  The viewer expects Mrs. Erlynne to blurt out who she is; and she does struggle to keep the words from passing her lips.  Biting her lip, she thinks the better of it and falls to entreating the young lady to flee and return home to her husband.  It is at this point that she does blurt out that she had done the very same thing and that it ruined her life.  So, now we know the whole story of the conception of Lady Windemere and why she was brought to believe her mother was dead.  Of course, the young lady has no idea that this is what she is being told, only the viewer is in the know.  But, the story does impact her and she allows Mrs. Erlynne to assist her out of the situation.  Before they can make good their escape, however, the men from the party have decided to have an after-party at Darlington's house, with Lord Lorton amongst them.  They flood his sitting room, leaving the two women trapped in the back of the house.  

Seeing the men arriviving for after-party

The only problem with fleeing out the back....Lady Windemere has accidentally left her fan on Lord Darlington's couch!  What to do now?  Mrs. Erlynne tells her daughter that she will take the blame; she knows her reputation precedes her--though she now has everything to lose--having been proposed to earlier in the evening.  She sends the young woman out and steels herself to confront the men.  Meanwhile, the fan has been discovered.

Facing the men

Mrs. Erlynne then confronts the men and claims that she took Lady Windemere's fan by mistake.  Lord Lorton stares at her, confounded and wounded.  Everyone else, including, and especially, Darlington looks confused and embarrassed. She is crest-fallen as she glances at Lorton and then leaves.  The young Lady Windemere has been saved; still believing that her mother is dead, but in debt to the woman she believed had been carrying on an affair with her husband.  She never discovers the real reason her husband was paying Mrs. Erlynne.  For her part, the very next day, Mrs. Erlynne has decided that she should continue her "adventures" and is packed up and planning to leave the city.  On her way out, she encounters Lord Lorton, who is on his way to her place of residence.  Being the woman wit and character that she truly is, she informs him that "no I don't think I will marry you!"  She then gets in her packed car, but Lorton follows, gets in with her, and they drive off together.  The implication is that they will indeed be getting hitched, but that is mearly an assumption.

The unresolved issues within the story is pure Wilde.  Ever the social satarist, he was never going to let the English gentry off with a straight forward happy ending, with all the parts reconciled, and all the secrets discovered and explained.  To convey the complicated nature of this through the lens of proper and improper sex, Lubitsch needed a clear vision as to how to approach the visual effects to have them forward the narrative. Because, again this is silent cinema.  This led to a masterful handling with a number of sexual props.  Even the sets themselves seem to convey this; they a comically over-sized.  Of course, there are practical reasons for the sets to be so over-large, from the point of shooting the film entirely (mostly) on a sound stage.  Still one cannot watch the film without having a sense that the especially large doors are meant to be constantly suggestive.  What I have come to love about this film, is it's play on the suggestive; the creative way in which Lubitsch approached it's production.  It has been said that he is the real star of the film, since none of the players were particularly famous.  His direction of the actors is impeccable, during an era when directors approached the job more with fussing over dialogue cards, rather than on directing the actual people in their film.  I feel I don't need the closure of all being known.  We see that one marriage was saved, and another, possibly, is produced.  The comedic and melodramatic sexual misunderstandings provide for a kind of re-marriage at the end.  That is enough for me.  Nice neat bows on packages not needed!

Birthday Wishes!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JEAN DUJARDIN FROM THE ARTIST 2011