How Would Lubitsch Do It?

S5E10 - Cluny Brown [1946] and our Grand Finale with Tim Brayton

[Due to our last-minute addition of two episodes, the podcast feed mistakenly had S5E09a queued here for a few hours this morning - it should now be fixed!]
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!

S5E09b - Cahiers du Cinéma deputy editor Charlotte Garson

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 BeNinotchkaI Don’t Want To Be a Man & The Oyster Princess
Charlotte’s analysis of Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife

S5E09a - Lubitsch and Poland with Mateusz Pacewicz [Feat. David Neary]

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

S5E8.75 - Wes Anderson and The Grand Budapest Hotel [2014] with Matt Severson

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:
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
 

S5E8.5- Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three [1961] with Noah Isenberg

Author Noah Isenberg joins us to discuss 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

S5E08.25 - Freundschaft by Samson Raphaelson

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

S5E08 - Dragonwyck, A Royal Scandal, That Lady In Ermine, and the Death of Ernst Lubitsch with David Cairns

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; andThat 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

S5E07.5 - Otto Preminger's Laura [1944] with Eloise Ross

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

S5E07 - Heaven Can Wait [1943] with Willa Ross

Willa 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

S5E06b - To Be Or Not To Be [1942] with Peter Labuza

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