Through the urging of actress Mary Pickford, Austrian Ernst Lubitsch sailed to America to direct her dramatic film 1923's 'Rosita.' Newly-formed Warner Brothers Studio, familiar with Lubitsch's well-earned reputation in producing light-hearted comedies, signed him immediately to a three-year, six picture contract, giving him the right to select his actors and film crew. So unusual was the contract at the time, the studio also granted him final say on the finished motion picture.
Lubitsch rolled up his sleeves and directed what became his signature trademark: a sophisticated romantic comedy that suggested rather than overtly displaying possible infidelities in a marriage. His February 1924 "The Marriage Circle" was the director's first American comedy, jump-starting an impressive body of work still studied today by film academia.
"The Marriage Circle" consists of three couples: one, Charlotte (Marie Prevost), instigates a series of hinted extra-marital affairs in two other marriages. Inspired by Charlie Chaplin's 'A Woman of Paris,' Lubitsch saw the possibilities of well-meaning events having the potential of spiraling out of control when one spouse suspects the other of cheating when an innocent act is interpreted the wrong way.
Based on a Lothar Schmidt play, 'Only A Dream,' "The Marriage Circle" begins with the morning ritual of a couple ignoring one another, establishing a cold relationship between the two. Professor Josef Stock (Adolphe Menjou) is the disgruntled hubby unhappy with his selfish wife, Charlotte. Spotting her getting into a cab with a gentleman (Monte Blue), who's actually a stranger picking up flowers for his wife, Stock immediately suspects the worst and hires a detective to tail his wife. 'The Lubitsch touch,' a much-interpreted term applied to the director's style of sophisticated, witty charm mixed in with a dose of nuanced sexuality, is first seen in an American production in "The Marriage Circle." Marie Prevost, who played Charlotte, was a early favorite actress of Lubitsch when he first came to the United States. She played in several of his films before released by Warner Brothers in 1926. Her roles on the screen diminished after that. She became depressed and turned to alcohol and food, gaining a lot of weight in the process. She died at the age of 38 on January 1937, leaving only $300 in her estate. Her post-career poverty was given as a prime example of spurring the Hollywood community to rally around the proposed Motion Picture Country House and Hospital, operated by a charitable group designed to provide assistance and residential care for those in the film industry who are undergoing financial hardships later in life.
So admired has been "The Marriage Circle" that the American Film Institution nominated it for the Top 100 Funniest Movies of All Time as well as a nominee for its Top 100 America's Greatest Love Story Movies. Directors as diverse as Alfred Hitchcock, Yasujiro Ozu, Jean Renoir, and Douglas Sirk all expressed an affection towards Lubitsch's second American film.
Lubitsch rolled up his sleeves and directed what became his signature trademark: a sophisticated romantic comedy that suggested rather than overtly displaying possible infidelities in a marriage. His February 1924 "The Marriage Circle" was the director's first American comedy, jump-starting an impressive body of work still studied today by film academia.
"The Marriage Circle" consists of three couples: one, Charlotte (Marie Prevost), instigates a series of hinted extra-marital affairs in two other marriages. Inspired by Charlie Chaplin's 'A Woman of Paris,' Lubitsch saw the possibilities of well-meaning events having the potential of spiraling out of control when one spouse suspects the other of cheating when an innocent act is interpreted the wrong way.
Based on a Lothar Schmidt play, 'Only A Dream,' "The Marriage Circle" begins with the morning ritual of a couple ignoring one another, establishing a cold relationship between the two. Professor Josef Stock (Adolphe Menjou) is the disgruntled hubby unhappy with his selfish wife, Charlotte. Spotting her getting into a cab with a gentleman (Monte Blue), who's actually a stranger picking up flowers for his wife, Stock immediately suspects the worst and hires a detective to tail his wife. 'The Lubitsch touch,' a much-interpreted term applied to the director's style of sophisticated, witty charm mixed in with a dose of nuanced sexuality, is first seen in an American production in "The Marriage Circle." Marie Prevost, who played Charlotte, was a early favorite actress of Lubitsch when he first came to the United States. She played in several of his films before released by Warner Brothers in 1926. Her roles on the screen diminished after that. She became depressed and turned to alcohol and food, gaining a lot of weight in the process. She died at the age of 38 on January 1937, leaving only $300 in her estate. Her post-career poverty was given as a prime example of spurring the Hollywood community to rally around the proposed Motion Picture Country House and Hospital, operated by a charitable group designed to provide assistance and residential care for those in the film industry who are undergoing financial hardships later in life.
So admired has been "The Marriage Circle" that the American Film Institution nominated it for the Top 100 Funniest Movies of All Time as well as a nominee for its Top 100 America's Greatest Love Story Movies. Directors as diverse as Alfred Hitchcock, Yasujiro Ozu, Jean Renoir, and Douglas Sirk all expressed an affection towards Lubitsch's second American film.