100 Essential Silent Film Comedies by James Roots

Author:James Roots [Roots, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2017-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

The Marriage Circle

(1924, Warner Bros.)

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

Writers: Paul Bern, Lothar Schmidt

Camera: Charles van Enger

Cast: Marie Prevost, Adolphe Menjou, Florence Vidor, Monte Blue, Creighton Hale, Harry Myers, Esther Ralston, Dale Fuller

Running Time (Length): 85 minutes

Availability: DVD (Image Entertainment)

Background: Ernst Lubitsch made his name in Europe with two kinds of movies: frenetic farce comedies that seemed more like a condescending parody of American slapstick than a real attempt to emulate it; and lavish, often melodramatic costume spectaculars in keeping with the European love of opulence, decadence, and ennui. Both kinds of films were so well made that it was inevitable he would be lured to Hollywood.

Mary Pickford, knowing nothing of the director’s working style, chose him to direct her in Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1924) but, in a foreshadowing of the clash of egos to come, Lubitsch imperiously dismissed the script out of hand. They agreed instead to make Rosita (1923). Although it turned out a critical and box-office success, both Pickford and Lubitsch regretted the collaboration: the self-regard of each, and their need for absolute control, made it impossible for them to cooperate.

With this obligatory debut out of the way, Lubitsch was free and sufficiently established to command full autonomy from Warner Brothers to make The Marriage Circle. It is the film most often cited as planting the style and craft that became identified as “the Lubitsch touch.”

Synopsis: Ever suave, ever dapper Adolphe Menjou needs an excuse to divorce his self-absorbed and trashy wife, Marie Prevost. Conveniently, she is summoned to her old friend Florence Vidor, who has just discovered that Prevost moved to Vienna recently, the same city where Vidor already lives in contrasting marital bliss with Monte Blue. Once Prevost gets a whiff of Vidor’s happiness, the bile of jealousy rises in her gorge and she makes an enormous play for Blue.

All too suddenly, Vidor is converted from totally trusting, devoted wife into suspicious virago, except her suspicions settle on the wrong “other woman,” and she sends Prevost into action to divert Blue, which of course is exactly what Prevost has already been doing. Vidor’s perplexing mistrust leads Blue into asking his colleague Creighton Hale, with his perpetual smarmy grin, to “console” Vidor while Blue focuses on rejecting (or not) Prevost’s attentions.

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