Films of the mid- and late 1930s of Ernst Lubitsch

Perhaps fearful that its star producer-director would permanently jump to MGM, Paramount formalized Lubitsch’s title as head of production in 1935, an unprecedented position of power for a director. That arrangement lasted only about one year, however, and Lubitsch returned to focusing on his own work. He made Angel with Marshall, Marlene Dietrich, and Melvyn Douglas in 1937, but that depiction of yet another romantic triangle proved to be one of his most-maligned commercial failures. Cooper and Colbert were paired in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938), but, despite a Charles Brackett–Billy Wilder script, it also failed at the box office, and Paramount finally let Lubitsch go to MGM.

His first film after leaving Paramount was Ninotchka (1939). Positioning the famously solemn Greta Garbo as a comedienne for the first time (the poster for the film’s tagline was “Garbo Laughs!”), Lubitsch—with the help of screenwriters Brackett, Wilder, and Walter Reisch—concocted one of her most-enduring films. Garbo played the title character, an icy Soviet Communist official dispatched to Paris to retrieve the Russian imperial jewels after a trio of her emissaries have not only failed to sell the jewels but are in danger of losing them to an exiled grand duchess who claims to be their rightful owner. In Paris Ninotchka meets an urbane count (Douglas), and, like her subordinates, she is soon seduced by the pleasures of Western decadence. Garbo, the film, the screenplay, and the original story by Melchior Lengyel were all nominated for Academy Awards.

Films of the 1940s

Lubitsch followed Ninotchka with yet another classic romantic comedy, The Shop Around the Corner (1940), starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as coworkers in a notions shop in Budapest. (Lubitsch often set his films in Europe, believing that American audiences would be more tolerant of racy behaviour from European characters.) The two detest each other, little knowing that they have already fallen in love through their anonymous correspondence. Perhaps Lubitsch’s warmest film, The Shop Around the Corner boasted a charming screenplay by Raphaelson.

That Uncertain Feeling (1941) was something of a disappointment after Lubitsch’s two previous triumphs. A remake of his 1925 silent comedy Kiss Me Again, it starred Douglas and Merle Oberon as an unhappily married couple who consider divorce but finally learn to appreciate each other.

The daring political comedy To Be or Not to Be (1942), from a story by Lubitsch and Lengyel, was another high-water mark for Lubitsch. Jack Benny and Carole Lombard played a married couple who are the stars of a Polish theatrical troupe in 1939 Warsaw that, even before the country’s occupation by the Germans, is prohibited from staging an anti-Nazi play and instead continues to perform William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Life becomes more complicated and harrowing for them during the German occupation, when they risk their lives to collaborate with the Polish Resistance. Unappreciated in its day for seeming to deal lightly with the Nazis—who are portrayed here as buffoons—To Be or Not to Be is more easily appreciated today as a razor-edged satire.

Heaven Can Wait (1943), Lubitsch’s first film under a new producer-director contract with Twentieth Century-Fox, was a bittersweet period comedy in which a ladies’ man (Don Ameche) reviews a lifetime of romantic malfeasance for a skeptical Satan (Laird Cregar) as he awaits admittance to hell. This charming but rueful fantasy, with a clever screenplay by Raphaelson, earned Lubitsch another Academy Award nomination as best director. Lubitsch became ill while working on A Royal Scandal (1945) and handed over the reins to Otto Preminger but recovered to direct Cluny Brown (1946), a charming period romance set on the eve of World War II. Lubitsch was awarded a special Academy Award for his lifetime achievements in 1947, then commenced work on That Lady in Ermine (1948), a musical scripted by Raphaelson. However, after directing the earliest stages of the film, Lubitsch died of a heart attack.