For Carole & Company's "Carole-tennial (+3)," marking the 103rd anniversary of Hollywood legend Carole Lombard's birth, I'm taking a look at my favorite Carole Lombard film, director Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be (1942). This was Lombard's last film, released just a month after her death. read more
I’ve been watching a lot of Lubitsch’s famous pre-Code musical comedies recently, so thought it would be interesting also to see this little-known serious anti-war drama which he made at the same period, starring Lionel Barrymore. Broken Lullaby – also known as The Man I Killed, af read more
“Gypsy Blood” (1918) is a silent drama starring Pola Negri, Harry Liedtke, and Leopald von Ledebur. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, this film was the first of his German productions to reach the United States. Adapted from Prosper Merimee’s 1845 novella “Carmen,” Lubitsch& read more
Ernst Lubitsch, "To Be or Not To Be," and Lombard's last impression
Coming to America
Director Ernst Lubitsch left his native Germany in 1922 at the invitation of silent-screen legend Mary Pickford. He directed Pickford in two popular films, Rosita (1923) and The Marriage Circle (1924). Ri read more
Trouble in Paradise features some great filmmaking. Here, Lubitsch runs wild with the passage of time–there’s a great sequence with various clocks marking the minutes, but there’s a lot of carefully orchestrated fades as well. The film opens with an excellent mixed shot–agai read more
From the first third of Design for Living, it’s impossible to think it might not be absolutely fantastic throughout. Eventually it does hit a dry period and it’s impossible to think it’s going to pull out of it. Then it does and it’s impossible to think… well, you get read more
