Ernst Lubitsch

Born in the German capital on January 28, 1892, Ernst Lubitsch was the son of a Jewish tailor of Russian origin. From a very young age he was passionate about cabaret, and everything related to acting, to such an extent that at the age of 16 he decided to drop out and try his luck as an actor in various music hall nightclubs. His father was not very amused, but she allows him in exchange for him also taking care of the accounting of the family tailor shop.

In 1911, Ernst Lubitsch joined the theater company of the illustrious Max Reinhardt, a fundamental figure in German theatre. He became the protagonist of some of his works, while in order to get some extra money, he entered the world of cinema, first as a boy for everything, at the Bioscope studios. He goes on to play a few movies, and appears in a series of comedies playing a character who dresses in traditional Jewish fashion. Since 1914, he decides to write and direct his own films.

His first success was the horror short Die Augen der Mumie Ma , with Pola Negri , who would become a big star. She then directs it again in the feature film Carmen , which has international repercussions. When the German government and banks support the UFA company to produce big blockbusters that can compete with Hollywood films, Lubitsch becomes the company’s most prominent director, especially following the success of Madame DuBarry , highly critical of France, because it shows the violence of the “idealized” French Revolution. And it is that UFA had as its main objective that its films attack the enemies of Germany, which is why Lubitsch also directsAnne Boleyn , which recreates the dark episode in the history of England.

It was the famous actress Mary Pickford who brought Lubitsch to the United States to direct Rosita , a film that she was going to star in and produce. Although he was not very successful, a modest company, which at that time was beginning little by little, Warner, offered him a contract.

It is soon seen that Lubitsch stands out especially in the field of comedy, after The Marriage Circle , with Adolphe Menjou or The Frivolity of a Lady , again with Menjou and Pola Negri. Already in the 1920s the term “Lubitsch touch” became famous to refer to a style of shooting based on suggesting rather than showing, as was the case with the famous ajar doors in Lady Windermere’s Fan . But the director’s cinema is also distinguished by its enormous capacity to deal with dramatic themes under the guise of lighthearted comedy.

It was with the advent of sound when Lubitsch began to really dazzle, due to his brilliant use of dialogue, in titles such as The Love Parade . He also stands out in the field of musicals with Paramount on Parade . After The Seductive Lieutenant , he failed spectacularly with the drama El remorse , so he decided to focus on comedies like the especially memorable A Thief in the Bedroom .

After the Nazis came to power, Lubitsch ended up becoming an American citizen. In 1935 he joined the actress Vivian Gaye (with whom he will have a baby), after divorcing Helene Kraus. That same year, he was appointed supervisor of Paramount, a position that he took advantage of to give work to some colleagues who had to flee Germany. He immediately left office and entered his period of creative fullness, with his most well-rounded films, such as Ángel , with Marlene Dietrich , as a woman who has an extramarital affair in Paris, or Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife , a well- rounded comedy with Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper , who co-wrote Billy Wilder .

“Lubitsch was the best screenwriter there ever was. I remember in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938) there was a scene in the script where Gary Cooper walks into a store in Nice and sees some posters. One of them says: ‘Se habla español’, in another it says: ‘Se habla inglés’. Lubitsch picked up a pen and wrote below: ‘The American is understood’. A little joke that said it all,” said Billy Wilder.

In the 40s, Lubitsch accumulates memorable titles such as The Bazaar of Surprises , or The Devil Said No. Although his great specialty continues to be political criticism, through witty satires. He especially gives play to totalitarianisms: communism ( Ninotchka ) and National Socialism ( To be or not to be ). He also put a lot of edge on traditional British customs in The Sin of Cluny Brown .

That was the last film to be finished, as Lubitsch died prematurely, as a result of cardiac arrest, after eight days of filming The Lady with an Ermine , which Otto Preminger would finish . This one had finished years before The Tsarina , another unfinished work by Lubitsch.

“We’ve run out of Lubitsch,” Billy Wilder told William Wyler at his funeral. “Worse still, we have run out of Lubitsch’s films,” he replied. Unfortunately, he was right and they don’t make movies like his anymore.