Video Details
Ernst Lubitsch's first American comedy masterpiece, the film that kept him in the States. Reeling from the difficulties encountered on his first American film, "Rosita," Lubitsch was ready to return to his native Germany until Warner Brothers, looking for an identity other than Rin Tin Tin, offered the director a chance to make his own unique films. In "The Marriage Circle," Lubitsch's influential silent comedy effortlessly follows the love and lust, flirtations and phoniness among several upper-crust citizens of Vienna. In Lubitsch's deft hands, "The Marriage Circle" continues the tradition of manners comedy and shows the "touch" the director was famous for. Lubitsch knew that in an atmosphere of hushed whispers and discretion, a kiss can carry quite an erotic charge. To see "The Marriage Circle" in this glistening print derived from the original negative, with an appropriately lilting score by the Mont Alto Orchestra, is to fall in love with the movies--and Ernst Lubitsch--all over again.
Review
In its time, The Marriage Circle was a saucy, slightly racy sex-farce -- and something of a revelation coming from Ernst Lubitsch who, up to that time, had specialized in lush historical dramas. Seen today, it's a fascinating artifact of a by-gone era, representing at least two familiar figures in their early screen incarnations: Monte Blue in his days as a leading man and Adolphe Menjou as a jealous husband. But it also offers Florence Vidor, wife of King Vidor (and the more successful of the two at the time) and Marie Prevost in their time. And the "Lubitsch Touch," which seems to have sprung fully formed from the frames of this frothy little romantic trifle, which began a two-decade-plus string of ever-finer romantic comedies from the director. Here's the original, not just for the better-known remake One Hour With You, but also much of his work right up through Cluny Brown in 1946. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
