Unable to agree on a follow up to the successful period romp of ROSITA/’23, Mary Pickford soon dropped the sexually knowing character Ernst Lubitsch had her play in that film (his Hollywood debut), returning to her comfort zone with innocent youth roles in LITTLE ANNIE ROONEY/’25 and SPARROWS/’26.* But Lubitsch moved forward, finding his true Hollywood self in this, the first of his signature chamber-sized sex comedies, originally at Warner Bros., later at Paramount. For Lubitsch, the pivotal moment presented itself upon seeing Charles Chaplin’s one-off drama, A WOMAN OF PARIS/’23. Though commercially unsuccessful, Chaplin’s chamber drama about an affair that changes three lives was enormously influential in scale & technique, with an indirect manner of moving story along that Lubitsch refined into pure visual wit, unlocking the essence of what became ‘The Lubitsch Touch,’ the art of getting something unsayable (often sexual) across. Doorknobs; windows unexpectedly open or closed; hats; missing buttons; white gloves & mislaid walking sticks; raised eyebrows; feint faints: all grist to the narrative. After becoming internationally famous for his humanizing historicals, as still seen in ROSITA, Lubitsch went from casts of thousands to casts of five, and found a whole world in the bargain. It started here; and he’s already a master of the form. CIRCLE opens by sketching in the bad marriage of dapper Adolph Menjou (nipped from WOMAN OF PARIS) and the delicious Marie Prevost. But once he spots her accidentally sharing a cab with Monte Blue, Menjou sees an opportunity for divorce. Florence Vidor plays the other man’s spouse, also misreading what she sees to worry about the wrong woman. Meanwhile, everyone’s best friend, the eternally hopeful Creighton Hale tags along, waiting (and waiting) to make a romantic move. (He’s like Tony Randall in one of those Doris Day comedies.) Slight, but sparking, still very funny, very involving, Lubitsch would return to the format all thru his career. Including a loose sound remake (ONE HOUR WITH YOU/’32 with Lubitsch taking over directing duties from a flummoxed George Cukor) that’s aged less gracefully than the silent original.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK: *Pickford turned against ROSITA in later years (perhaps having ceded artistic control made it all too hard to swallow the critical & commercial success) and it became one of the few titles she didn’t bother to maintain properly. The sole surviving print, from a Russian archive, has been miraculously resurrected and is introduced by MoMA film curator Dave Kehr on this link. (But where’s the full restored print?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ2iZ9Sofl4
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