Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise

by Scott Eyman

Overview

“Highly recommended” (Library Journal): The only full-length biography of legendary film director Ernst Lubitsch, the director of such Hollywood classics as Trouble in Paradise, Ninotchka, and The Shop Around the Corner.

In this groundbreaking biography of Ernst Lubitsch, undeniably one of the most important and influential film directors and artists of all time, critic and biographer Scott Eyman, author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller John Wayne, examines not just the films Lubitsch created, but explores as well the life of the man, a life full of both great successes and overwhelming insecurities. The result is a fascinating look at a man and an era—Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Born in Berlin and transported to Hollywood in the 1920s with the help of Mary Pickford, Lubitsch brought with him a level of sophistication and subtlety previously unknown to American movie audiences. He was quickly established as a director of unique quality and distinction. He captivated audiences with his unique “touch,” creating a world of fantasy in which men are tall and handsome (unlike Lubitsch himself) and humorously adept at getting women into bed, and where all the women are beautiful and charming and capable of giving as well as receiving love. He revived the flagging career of Marlene Dietrich and, in Ninotchka, created Greta Garbo’s most successful film. When movie buffs speak of “the Lubitsch touch,” they refer to a sense of style and taste, humor and humanity that defined the films of one of Hollywood’s all-time great directors. In the history of the medium, no one has ever quite equaled his unique talent.

Written with the cooperation of an extraordinary ensemble of eyewitnesses, and unprecedented access to the files of Paramount Pictures, this is an enthralling biography as rich and diverse as its subject—sure to please film buffs of all types, especially those who champion Lubitsch as one of the greatest filmmakers ever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501103827
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	04/21/2015
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	359,011
File size:	38 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Scott Eyman has written fifteen books, three of them New York Times bestsellers, including John Wayne: The Life and Legend. His most recent book is Hank and Jim. He has been awarded the William K. Everson Award for Film History by the National Board of Review. He teaches film history at the University of Miami and lives in West Palm Beach with his wife, Lynn.

Table of Contents

Contents:



Preface to The Johns Hopkins Edition



Prologue

Laughter in Paradise

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Filmography

Bibliography

Index

Johns Hopkins University Press

What People are Saying About This

Kevin Brownlow

I have always revered Lubitsch the artist. Scott Eyman now reveals Lubitsch as a human being, as charming—and as frail—as one of his own characters. Ideal for anyone who cares about the cinema.
—(Kevin Brownlow, author of David Lean: A Biography)

Pauline Kael

Written with the kind of intuitiveness that's rooted in knowledge and affection. Eyman's scholarship gives the reader pleasure.

John Ford

None of us thought we were making anything but entertainment for the moment. Only Ernst Lubitsch knew we were making art.

Kevin Brownlow

I have always revered Lubitsch the artist. Scott Eyman now reveals Lubitsch as a human being, as charming—and as frail—as one of his own characters. Ideal for anyone who cares about the cinema.

Pauline Kael

Written with the kind of intuitiveness that's rooted in knowledge and affection. Eyman's scholarship gives the reader pleasure.

Editorial Reviews

In an entrancing, revealing biography that illuminates the unique chemistry behind 'the Lubitsch touch,' Eyman limns a single-minded director, despised by Hitler, who embodied the classic immigrant experience in Hollywood by giving a European twist to American genres.

Publishers Weekly

Gratifying biography of one of the screen's greatest directors... Distinguished. Written for full orchestra, it captures every subtlety.

Kirkus

A resoundingly wonderful, first-ever full-dress biography of the inspired filmmaker... Eyman writes with steady brilliance throughout but takes on extra luster when describing the making of Lubitsch's greatest works.

Hollywood Reporter

Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) made elegant, warmly human comedies exuding sexual sophistication, yet in his personal life, notes Eyman, the German-born film director was vulnerable and almost naive. Son of a middle-class Berlin tailor who had escaped the squalor of czarist Russia, Lubitsch moved to Hollywood in 1922 with his first wife, temperamental actress Helene Sonnet Kraus. Her affair with Lubitsch's best friend, screenwriter Hans Kraly, wrecked their marriage, reports Eyman ( Mary Pickford ). Lubitsch's second wife, aristocratic Vivian Gaye, who considered him vulgar, was widely viewed as a gold digger by his friends. As production head of Paramount, Lubitsch encountered a hornet's nest of egos and political intrigue that led to his dismissal in 1936. In an entrancing, revealing biography that illuminates the unique chemistry behind ``the Lubitsch Touch,'' Eyman limns a single-minded director, despised by Hitler, who embodied the classic immigrant experience in Hollywood by giving a European twist to American genres in classics like Ninotchka , Design for Living and Heaven Can Wait. Photos. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

After starring in and directing silent films in Germany, Lubitsch emigrated to America, where his success continued until he died in 1947. Lubitsch produced, directed, and was the uncredited co-writer on some of the most stylish and sophisticated comedies ever made, including Trouble in Paridise (1932), Ninotchka (1939), and To Be or Not To Be (1942). Eyman's well-researched biography is successful in showing how Lubitsch was similar to, and different from, the characters in his films. While Eyman is not blind to Lubitsch's faults, his admiration is evident. More detailed notes on the sources would have been welcome; nevertheless, this account is highly recommended.-- John Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.

Library Journal

During Hollywood's golden age, film director Ernst Lubitsch was known for the sophistication, understated wit, and sexual suggestiveness of his movies--in short, for "the Lubitsch touch." Starting out in pre-World War I Berlin as an actor in Max Reinhardt's company, Lubitsch became one of Europe's leading film directors and was the first major German director to emigrate (in 1922) to the U.S. Moving smoothly into the sound era, he virtually invented the movie musical in "The Love Parade" (1929) and in the mid-1930s was made production head at Paramount--thus the only director ever to run a Hollywood studio. Although audiences' tastes turned in the 1930s from sophisticated satires to screwball comedies, Lubitsch's later films, including "Ninotchka" and "Heaven Can Wait", were among his best. The director lacked the "savoir faire" of his films' characters. His two marriages both ended unhappily, and his other romantic liaisons fared little better. His skills behind the camera and personal charm, however, inspired the loyalty and affection of actors, screenwriters, and other coworkers, many of whom shared their reminiscences with Eyman, whose work is consequently heavy with anecdotes but entertaining and informative.

Gordon Flagg

Gratifying biography of one of the screen's greatest directors, by Eyman (Mary Pickford, 1992—not reviewed), film critic for the Palm Beach Post. Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) foretold that all his films, as well as those of his contemporaries, would vanish and turn to nitrate dust in the cans—and many did, film seemingly not having the longevity even of flesh. Fortunately, much of Lubitsch's work survives, because, unlike most of his fellow directors, Lubitsch didn't treat his films as just so much entertainment; instead, he patiently bathed them in wit and artistry, and, later, in humanity. A Berlin Jew of Russian ancestry, Lubitsch at 19 was a minor comic actor in the famed Max Reinhardt troupe, training that soon aided him marvelously when it came to directing film actors. Before coming to Hollywood in the early 20's, he'd directed and acted in dozens of silent German features (some of the best of them now lost utterly). A merry, cigar-smoking gnome of immense creativity, he had no rivals but many imitators. He wrote or cowrote (with playwright/screenwriter Samson Raphaelson, Billy Wilder, and others) nearly all his films, basing them largely on Hungarian farces or great operettas, and he invented the film musical whose lyrics and dance numbers not only advance the plot but demand witty camera work. His greatest talkies include The Merry Widow, Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner, Ninotchka, To Be or Not to Be, and Heaven Can Wait, while even his misfires and lesser works shine with "the Lubitsch Touch" (a poor phrase, Eyman says). Lubitsch's former collaborator Raphaelson, the author tells us, thinks the director an unsentimental, vulgar man who never read abook but who nonetheless stood topmost among the most boundlessly charming men ever born. Readers driven to seek Lubitsch out in video stores will no doubt agree. Distinguished. Written for full orchestra, it captures every subtlety. (Photographs)

Kirkus Reviews

"Written with the kind of intuitiveness that's rooted in knowledge and affection. Eyman's scholarship gives the reader pleasure."

Pauline Kael

I have always revered Lubitsch the artist. Scott Eyman now reveals Lubitsch as a human being, as charming—and as frail—as one of his own characters.

Kevin Brownlow