Albert Doyle Wrote:I just saw Lubitsch's 'Trouble In Paradise' 1932. Lubitsch said it was his favorite of all his films.
That's the first Lubitsch film I saw, and I thought, "This must be the guy's masterpiece."
Now that I've seen all fifty of his extant works (including some fragments), I still
believe it is. It's a great way to introduce people to Lubitsch. It's the best romantic
comedy. He did much to create that genre as well as the musical genre. Orson Welles
called him "a giant." Lubitsch is somewhat obscure today, at least in America, and
I want to help bring him back to what he once was, a household name. TO BE OR NOT
TO BE is an amazingly audacious and courageous political film that many people
today do know and revere. I recommend it and TROUBLE IN PARADISE and THE SHOP
AROUND THE CORNER and NINOTCHKA as a mini Lubitsch festival for anyone wanting
to explore his work.
I was trying to think of a link between Lubitsch and JFK, and all I immediately
came up with is that Robert Stack is the handsome young aviator who is having
an affair with Carole Lombard in TO BE OR NOT TO BE. Stack and JFK used
to go out on the town in Hollywood together, and Stack later commented,
perhaps facetiously, that JFK should have stayed in Hollywood because
he was such an accomplished ladies' man.
