How Would Lubitsch Do It comes to a close with a grand finale. Tim Brayton returns to discuss Cluny Brown and look back on both Ernst Lubitsch’s career and the past five seasons of this show.

First, we discuss everything Cluny Brown: the film’s generosity and humanism, its commentary on British class society, its relationship with the second world war, its full-throated embrace of absurdism, the title character’s magnetism, Adam Belinski’s status as a revision on a stock villain, and the film’s somewhat autobiographical and wonderfully optimistic ending.

Second, we close out the show with a look back: we debate our respective rankings (Tim, Devan) of Lubitsch’s filmography, highlight our favourite cast members, crew members and collaborators, discuss subsequent filmmakers who bear distinct marks of Lubitsch’s influence, discuss whether or not the show’s structure accurately reflects the ebbs and flows and our subject’s career, and answer the key questions: why Lubitsch? Why a podcast?

Edited by Griffin Sheel.

---

A Thanks

I started this quixotic project two years ago with the hope of making something that spoke to me and, if anyone else was interested, so be it. Turns out some other people were interested, and if you’re reading this now, that’s probably you. My endless and sincere thanks for sticking it through.

Thanks to the many guests who lent their time and support throughout the show: Lauren Faulkner Rossi, Fran Hoepfner, Bram Ruiter, Luci Marzola, Jaime Rebenal, Maddie Whittle, Paul Cuff, Kristin Thompson, Stefan Droissler, Molly Rasberry, Sarah Shachat, James Penco, Dave Kehr, Julia Sirmons, David Neary, Patrick Keating, Jennifer Fleeger, Katharine Coldiron, Jonathan Mackris, Will Sloan, Lea Jacobs, Tanya Goldman, Krin Gabbard, Jordan Fish, Ray Tintori, Z Behl, Eric Dienstfrey, Scott Eyman, Imogen Sarah Smith, Chris Cassingham, Olympia Kiriakou, Griffin Newman, Kevin Bahr, Whit Stillman, Adrian Martin, Jose Arroyo, Lance St. Laurent, Tim Brayton, William Paul, Dara Jaffe, Gary Jaffe, Peter Labuza, Willa Harlow Ross, Eloise Ross, David Cairns, Noah Isenberg, Matt Severson, Mateusz Pacewicz, and Charlotte Garson.

Our editors: Griffin Sheel, Gloria Mercer, Willa Harlow Ross, Sophia Yoon, Rylee Cronin, Brennen King, & Eden Cote-Foster

Our location sound engineer, Anna Citak-Scott.

And others who lent valuable counsel and support: the Margaret Herrick Library, the Museum of Modern Art, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and most of all to Ernst Lubitsch, who taught me more than it could possibly take the sixty-eight episodes of this podcast to describe.

This entire experience - hundreds of hours of research, recording, and editing - has been among the great pleasures of my life, and everyone’s contributions have meant a great deal to me. Onwards to whatever’s next!

Photo by Devan Scott

---

FURTHER READING:

Cluny Brown: The Joys of Plumbing by Siri Hustvedt

Tim’s Letterboxd Ranking of Lubitsch's Films

Devan’s Letterboxd Ranking of Lubitsch's Films

Cahiers du Cinéma deputy editor Charlotte Garson joins us for a wide-ranging discussion that takes a look back at the past five seasons of the podcast and our subject’s career: among other things, we cover Lubitsch’s treatment of unconventional relationships, feminine sexuality and gender fluidity, his treatment of theatricality, his influence upon the critics of Cahiers and other filmmakers, and more doors.

Edited by Griffin Sheel.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

It’s the end! The grand finale! Tim Brayton returns to discuss Cluny Brown and to help wrap up the whole show with a look back at everything we’ve spent the past two years covering. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.

WORKS CITED:

Ernst Lubitsch (1985) - Cahiers du Cinéma

Charlotte’s introductions, delivered at the Centre Des Arts Cinema, for:
To Be Or Not To Be
Ninotchka
I Don’t Want To Be a Man & The Oyster Princess

Charlotte’s analysis of Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife

---

Screenwriter Mateusz Pacewicz (Corpus Christi, The Hater) joins us to discuss the films of Lubitsch from a Polish perspective. We coverTo Be Or Not To Be’s depiction of Warsaw, the history of Lubitsch’s collaborators such as Pola Negri, the dynamics of European immigrants in twentieth-century America, the nature of dark comedy and ‘lightness’, the nature of performance, lies, truth, identity, and nationality, and the tall tales of Andrzej Krakowski.

David Neary also stops by for an encore discussion of Heaven Can Wait.

Edited by Griffin Sheel.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

In our penultimate episode, Cahiers du Cinéma deputy editor Charlotte Garson joins us for a retrospective!

WORKS CITED:

Ernst Lubitsch in Warsaw - April 26, 1936, Kino no. 17

Lubitsch visits Warsaw c. 1936

---

Matt Severson returns to discuss Wes Anderson and The Grand Budapest Hotel. We discuss Lubitsch’s clear influence on the film, Anderson’s use of fabulist distancing techniques, common attitudes about Anderson’s supposed emotional remoteness, and our own emotional connections to the film.

Edited by Eden Cote-Foster.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

In a late addition, screenwriter Mateusz Pacewicz joins us to discuss Ernst from a Polish perspective!

WORKS CITED:

The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel by Matthew Zoller Seitz

Video Essay on The Grand Budapest Hotel by Matthew Zoller Seitz

Devan’s review of To Be Or Not To Be on Letterboxd

---

Author Noah Isenberg joins us to discuss Lubitsch mentee Billy Wilder and his 1961 comedic epic One, Two, Three. We cover Wilder’s early life as a reporter, a dancer-for-hire, and publicist; his lifelong ability to adapt to his circumstances; the question of his cynicism (or is it frustrated romanticism?); and his fraught relationship with Germany. Later on, we cover the fascinating production of One, Two, Three, the manners in which the film echoes his earlier work, and Jimmy Cagney’s superhuman verbal stamina.

Edited by Eden Cote-Foster.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

Matt Severson joins us to discuss Wes Anderson and The Grand Budapest Hotel. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.

WORKS CITED:

On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder by Ed Sikov

Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna by Noah Isenberg

---

A reading of Samson Raphaelson’s Freundschaft, as published on May 11, 1981, in The New Yorker.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

Noah Isenberg joins us to discuss Billy Wilder and his cold war comedic epic One, Two, Three. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.

WORKS CITED:

Freundschaft by Samson Raphaelson

---

David Cairns returns to discuss the end of Ernst Lubitsch’s career and life: a period in which, after a heart attack left him debilitated, he produced a series of films directed by the likes of Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Otto Preminger. We cover Dragonwyck, cinema’s foremost depiction of the Dutch patroonship system in what is now upstate New York; A Royal Scandal, a remake of Forbidden Paradise; and That Lady in Ermine, Lubitsch’s final unfinished project later completed to little effect by Otto Preminger.

Throughout the episode, we discuss the gap in worldviews between Lubitsch and Preminger, our dream Lubitsch/actor pairings that never came to pass, Billy Wilder’s tall tales, Ernst Lubitsch’s death, and what comes next.

Edited by Brennen King.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

A reading of Freundschaft, Samson Raphaelson’s eulogy for Ernst Lubitsch.

WORKS CITED:

The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger by Chris Fujiwara

---

Writer and film historian Eloise Ross joins us to discuss noted Lubitsch disciple Otto Preminger and his 1944 noir Laura. We cover Preminger’s past and parallels with Lubitsch, the tumultuous story of Laura’s production, the film’s highly unusual tone, its memorable characters and dialogue, and the majesty of Clifton Webb.

Edited by Brennen King

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

David Cairns returns to discuss A Royal Scandal, Dragonwyck, That Lady in Ermine, and the death of Ernst Lubitsch.

WORKS CITED:

The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger by Chris Fujiwara

---

Willa Harlow Ross returns for a lively discussion about Heaven Can Wait. We cover Lubitsch and Raphaelson’s opposing views on the film’s unusual protagonist, its counterintuitive structure and elisions, the film’s theological implications, argue about whether or not the production code negatively impacted the film, and discuss what happened at Fox in the early 1970s and why it matters for technicolor pictures such as this.

Edited by Griffin Sheel.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

Writer and film historian Eloise Ross joins us to discuss Otto Preminger and his 1944 noir Laura. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.

WORKS CITED:

Eloise Ross's Writeup for HEAVEN CAN WAIT in Senses of CInema

Heaven Can Wait: The Simple Act of Living by William Paul

Robert Harris’s “KNIGHTS OF FILM PRESERVATION” Forum Post

View fullsize

---

Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Peter Labuza returns for the second of two episodes on To Be Or Not To Be. We discuss the film’s production history, the way in which the film both fulfills and frustrates conventions of comedic structure, Lubitsch’s specific habits in directing actors, the film’s unusual tonal arc, the film’s depiction of fascist ideology, and Rudolph Mate’s cinematography.

Edited by Eden Cote-Foster.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

Willa Ross returns to discuss Heaven Can Wait. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.

WORKS CITED:

Bosley Crowther’s Review of TO BE OR NOT TO BE in the New York Times

Ernst Lubitsch's Response

Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System by Emily Carman

Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris

View fullsize

View fullsize

---

I’m thrilled to announce that the Pacific Cinematheque over here in Vancouver is hosting a six-film Ernst Lubitsch retrospective this October - perfectly timed to line up with the finale of this podcast!

I’ll be introducing two films - Lady Windermere’s Fan on October 12th and the tinted cut of One Hour With You on October 19th.

SCREENINGS

LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN
+ I DON’T WANT TO BE A MAN
October 12th - 2:00pm

Introduction by Devan Scott

ANGEL
October 12th - 6:00pm
October 15th - 8:25pm

ONE HOUR WITH YOU (Tinted)
October 13th - 6:30pm
October 19th - 8:30pm

October 19th showing includes introduction by Devan Scott

CLUNY BROWN
October 14th - 6:30pm
October 20th - 8:40pm

TO BE OR NOT TO BE
October 14th - 8:40pm
October 20th - 6:30pm

Returning guest Dara Jaffe and first-time guest Gary Jaffe join us for the first of two episodes on To Be Or Not To Be. In this episode, we cover the interplay between theatre and film, and of improvisation and comedy; the many dimensions of the film’s relationship with Jewish identities; the use of empathy and humanism as anti-fascist tools; Lubitsch’s self-reflexive approach to diegetic reality; the key character of Greenberg, and Felix Bressart’s performance; the history of performances of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice; and the film’s influence on contemporary cinema.

Recorded at the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, CA by Anna Citak-Scott.

Edited by Griffin Sheel.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

Peter Labuza returns for the second of two discussions on To Be Or Not To Be. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.

WORKS CITED:

Production Code Administration notes on To Be Or Not To Be

Hollywood's Other Great Anti-Nazi Movie by Thomas Doherty

David Kalat’s Commentary on the Criterion Edition of To Be Or Not To Be

Adrian Martin’s Review of To Be Or Not To Be.

To Be Or Not To Be (A Jew) by Dorian Stuber and Marianne Tettlebaum

---

Production Stills

Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

We return from our brief hiatus with our most in-depth episode yet, culled from five hours of discussions recorded over a period of several months with William Paul, author of the essential critical study Ernst Lubitsch’s American Comedy.

We discuss Paul’s friendship with frequent Lubitsch collaborator Samson Raphaelson, Raphaelson’s sometimes-harsh retrospective criticism of his own work, the linguistic tics that unite Lubitsch’s filmography, their methods of adapting obscure Hungarian plays, Raphaelson’s recollections of Alfred Hitchcock's very different working methods, and Suspicion’s shocking alternate ending.

Later on, we discuss the neuroscientific mechanisms of comedy, the biological purpose of laughter, the relationship of To Be Or Not To Be and the idea of “passing”, and engage in some record-correction as to whether or not the film was as controversial as is widely believed.

Edited by Brennen King and Eden Cote-Foster.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

Dara and Ryan Jaffe join us for the first of two discussions on To Be Or Not To Be For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.

WORKS CITED:

Ernst Lubitsch’s American Comedy by William Paul

---

Samson Raphaelson Interview by Bill Moyers

---

Next week, we return from our brief mid-season hiatus to cover the last five years of Lubitsch’s life as well as the careers of some of his most notable disciples including Otto Preminger and Billy Wilder.

Join us on Tuesday, August 6th as we close the book on our podcast, starting with an interview with William Paul, author of Ernst Lubitsch's American Comedy.

Tim Brayton returns to discuss noted Lubitsch fan and disciple Preston Sturges and his 1941 meta-comedy SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS. We cover Sturges’ immense admiration of Lubitsch, the film’s immensely fascinating but perhaps frustrating relationship with its own status as a satire of its own form, Sturges’ political beliefs and moral compass, the value of communal viewings to comedic cinema, and much more.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Edited by Brennen King.

---

NEXT WEEK:

We’re taking a little break! See you in August for the last ten episodes of Season 5 and the end of our story.

WORKS CITED:

Romantic Comedy in Hollywood: From Lubitsch to Sturges and The Lady Eve (The Current) by James Harvey

Pursuits of Happiness: A Reading of the lady Eve by Stanley Cavell

Fast Talk: Preston Sturges and the Speed of Sound by Joe McElhaney

Preston Sturges: Success in the Movies by Manny Farber and W.S. Poster

Christmas in July (Review) by Adrian Martin

---

UW-Madison PHD Candidate Lance St. Laurent joins us to discuss THAT UNCERTAIN FEELING, as well as some comedic theory. We discuss our mutual admiration for elements of this relatively minor divorce-and-remarriage-style comedy, Lubitsch’s attempts to tackle psychoanalysis and modern art, and the film’s production origins. Additionally, we go deep on comic theory: relief, superiority, and incongruity all have their day, and we discuss the ways in which comedy involves collaboration between an artist and their audience. Lastly, we apply all this to the Tom Green masterpiece FREDDY GOT FINGERED, because that’s germane.

Edited by Eden Cote-Foster.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

Tim Brayton returns to discuss Preston Sturges and SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.

WORKS CITED:

Humour: A Short Introduction by Noel Carroll

---

This week, we present an episode of the SCREEN GUILD THEATER starring Ernst Lubitsch, Claudette Colbert, and possibly Jack Benny!

Originally aired on October 20th, 1940.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

Lance St. Laurent joins us to discuss THAT UNCERTAIN FEELING, as well as some comedic theory. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.

WORKS CITED:

Ernst Lubitsch: The Radio Years (Forum Post) - A list of every Lubitsch-related episode of the Screen Guild Theater.

---

Critic Adrian Martin joins us for our final episode on THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER. In our discussion, we deconstruct some of the film’s camera direction, discuss Lubitsch’s late-period style and his more subtle (yet still very much present) formalism, his structural methodology, his use of repetition, the dynamics between “art” and “craft”, and Lubitsch’s continuing influence.

We also, at long last, try to define the Lubitsch “touch”. Or maybe not.

Edited by Brennen King

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

We present an episode of THE GULF SCREEN GUILD THEATRE starring Ernst Lubitsch, Claudette Colbert, and possibly Jack Benny.

WORKS CITED:

Game Space and Play Time: A Partial History of American Screen Comedy (Lubitsch, Sturges, Tashlin) by Adrian Martin

Adrian Martin's Review of THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

Innuendo by William D. Routt

Cinematógrafos - Edgardo Cozarinsky (Buenos Aires: BAFICI, 2010)

Acting Ordinary in The Shop Around the Corner - George Tolles

---

Whit Stillman and Jose Arroyo join us for our second episode on THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER. Whit discusses Lubitsch’s writing process, the ways in which the film is exemplary of the Hollywood studio system at its best, and his admiration for Pirovitch. Jose later joins us for a formal breakdown of the film’s final scene.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Edited by Willa Ross.

---

NEXT WEEK:

Film critic Adrian Martin joins us for our final episode on THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER.

WORKS CITED:

Whit Stillman: Not So Long Ago

Stillman's Writeup on THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER for the New York Times

Jose Arroyo's Podcast Episode on SHOP and YOU'VE GOT MAIL

---

Kevin Bahr joins us for the first of our episodes on the greatest Jimmy Stewart-related Christmas movie of them all, THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER. In this episode, we discuss the film’s unusual structure, ensemble nature, each character’s arc towards self-improvement, capital, our shared admiration of Pepi, the film’s historical context, Samson Raphaelson’s screenplay, and the depths of the film’s darkness as well as the warmth that persists despite said darkness.

Edited by Willa Ross.

We have a Discord!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

---

NEXT WEEK:

Whit Stillman and Jose Arroyo join us for our second episode on THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.

---

Works Cited

Kevin’s essay on The Shop Around the Corner