User reviews

This was actually Ernst Lubitsch's first film for Warner Brothers, he remade it 8 years later as the sublime One Hour With You for Paramount. It's always been difficult for me to not mentally refer to the latter whenever watching this – because it's a good film in its own right and is better not compared to the technically and technologically improved later musical version.

In Vienna city of dreams the husband of an ever-flirting wife grasps the opportunity to obtain a divorce on the grounds of her infidelity with the husband of her best friend. And the husbands' best friend fancies his wife too. Farcical situations develop, with the prevailing morals and manners always to the fore, but basically everyone gets what they deserve. Lubitsch's elegant production, the lovely décor, lightly salted frivolous story and human acting proved a big hit at the time and dare I say it, could be ultimately just as rewarding to watch as OHWY. It might have been a little better if it had only been 10 minutes shorter – some of the scenes are stultifyingly languorous, but I'm not really complaining.

Although neither version ended satisfactorily, this was still a wonderful piece of film-making, a foretaste of things to come from Lubitsch and above all else, nice entertainment.

I wanted to retrace some of the steps in the development of the sophisticated romantic comedy film after reviewing some Oscar Wilde adaptations, of all things, the first great one being Ernst Lubitsch's 1925 "Lady Windermere's Fan." Based on another's play, "The Marriage Circle" seems to be where the director first formulated this new direction; from it, one may trace the evolution to modern and later comedies of sex and remarriage--not only drawing a line from here to Lubitsch's subsequent productions, but also to, say, a piece of classic Hollywood cinema such as "The Philadelphia Story" (1940). Even ignoring all of that, "The Marriage Circle" is delightfully light in tone, avoiding blunt moralizing, which somewhat obscures in seemingly superficial fluff what is some clever and subtle filmmaking--the "Lubitsch touch"--although his subsequent "Lady Windermere's Fan" is even better.

The circle of adulterous flirtation begins with a professor hiring a detective to gather evidence for a divorce from his wife, Mizzi, who, indeed, tries to woo the doctor husband of her friend, who, in turn, is admired by her husband's partner Gustav. Initially, the doctor's wife also mistakingly believes that her husband is having an affair with yet another woman. And around they go. The film is full of knowing looks and dramatic irony from characters misreading what they see. Like "Lady Windermere's Fan," there are some nice-looking shots involving windows and doors. A sly smile creeps up on the professor's face after he peers out a window to see his wife getting into a cab with the doctor, and there are a few compositions of characters seen through doorways. Once derided, but now celebrated by some like me, as "the director of doors," Lubitsch also includes a humorous episode where the doctor storms out of an apartment through four doors to get outside.

The cast is OK, although I mostly prefer the leads in Lubitsch's 1932 remake "One Hour with You." Monte Blue plays frazzled well enough as the doctor, but I prefer him in Lubitsch's later picture, "So This is Paris" (1926), and compared to Maurice Chevalier in the 1932 film, he's not preferred. And while I like that Marie Prevost's curls remind me of Clara Bow, her character comes off as too vampish and pathetic next to Genevieve Tobin's joyous Mitzi in the remake. The one big exception to my preference for the 1932 cast is Adolphe Menjou, who is perfect as the impervious professor. One benefit of Mizzi's characterization in this version is that it leads to a virtuoso, some-20 seconds long take of Menjou's startled expression when she hugs him--even though that scene, dropped from the remake, is a rather dramatic red herring. And the opening scene between the two is remarkable for conveying their marriage in disarray visually without needless intertitles.

Circling back, besides the emphasis on looks and the connected use of doors and windows, as well as the comedy of manners and misconceptions of infidelity, "The Marriage Circle" and "Lady Windermere's Fan" have a few more things in common. Both feature potentially adulterous couplings in a garden scene during a party, with the wife mistaking her husband for being caught in the act. Characters in both misread and reveal information from letters and other written documents, including dinner-party seating arrangements. The doctor's hat here also serves a similar function to that of the fan in the other film, and there are similar final scenes involving re-coupling and cars, which both resolve and prevent the narratives from becoming moral lessons. Where I'd fault "The Marriage Circle," by comparison, though, is that it doesn't seem quite as polished. The characters aren't quite as well rounded; the doctor's wife's jealousy on four separate occasions and pushing him away twice, seems repetitive, for instance--rather too circular. That three times shots of letters are repeated bothered me, too--I mean, we already read them, so shots of characters looking at them instead of just the letters themselves would suffice.

To come full circle, "The Marriage Circle," while establishing a precedent, of course, also has its antecedents, besides the earlier, more broad and grotesque comedies by Lubitsch while in Germany. Charlie Chaplin's "A Woman of Paris" (1923) is a frequently cited one, with the casting of Menjou in both films, in particular, being considered a nod by Lubitsch to Chaplin's display of a more deliberate form of pacing, a witty focus on particular details and a more restrained kind of cinematic acting within a more modern story--even though Chaplin's film suffers, unlike "The Marriage Circle," from its overbearing melodramatics. There are also the prior sex dramedies by Cecil B. DeMille, but they lack a similar level of narrative or visual sophistication, and even their titles indicate their greater gender imbalance, while perhaps simultaneously over-selling the sensationalism of the subject matter ("Old Wives for New," "Male and Female," "Don't Change Your Husband," "Why Change Your Wife?") compared to "A Woman of Paris" and the "The Marriage Circle," which respectively suggest femininity and gender equality, as well as sex. When the doctor's wife here states their infidelities to be "fifty-fifty," she's not far off. (Now, how the guy (DeMille) who went on to make Biblical epics started out with stories of marital infidelity and sexual promiscuity is a development in film history I may want to revisit later, too.) Discovering the formula that worked, Lubitsch remained rather faithful to the production of sophisticated romantic comedies, through his musicals, such as the remake "One Hour with You," to his other classic films of the 1930s and 1940s.

Professor Stock (Adolph Menjou) and wife Mizzi (Marie Provost) have reached an impasse in their marriage and he wants out. Mizzi's best friend Charlotte ( Florence Vidor ) is blissfully married to Dr. Charles Braun (Monte Blue). His partner Dr. Mueller (Creighton Hale) has designs on Charlotte who has no interest. When Mizzi sets her sights on Dr. Braun suspicions, stoked by misinterpretation and the diabolical Mizzi arise and accusations fly.

The Marriage Circle is an excellent comedy of errors from the Silent Era featuring the wit and sophistication of Ernst Lubitsch that would go on to brilliantly inform some of the finest adult comedies before and after sound and code enforcement. Here he breezily unfolds his story with a benign amorality and suspense as his quintet of characters all share a little guilt and selfishness.

Vidor is a beauty and paragon of virtue to behold but capable of being petty. Blue and Hale comically pine and mope while Menjou is pure dinner at eight collected. Acting honors however belong to Provost's Mizzi whose side glances and brashness haul the rest of the characters into the circle.

The Marriage Circle is an outstanding example of silent film comedy and in large contrast to the slapstick that still dominated. Doors are closed, not slammed or run through, the humor is sly not pie in the face. Lubitsch conveys it beautifully here as he would into sound as well as influence a generation of filmmakers.

Ernst Lubitsch adds his inimitable touch to this tale of marital infidelity, which isn't so much a comedy as a quiet tragedy disguised as one. There's a melancholic undertone to almost every humorous moment.

I found The Marriage Circle pretty annoying more for the characters than the acting.

Annoying Mizzi (Marie Prevost) is in a bad marriage to Adolphe Menjou so she decides to go after her friend's doctor husband (Monte Blue) by constantly calling for his services by pretending to be sick. The whole premise here is that the vamp has only to bat an eyelash or drop a shoulder strap and the dopey man falls to his knees enslaved. Monte is married to Florence Vidor and his business associate (Creighton Hale) is mad for her. But Flo loves Monte ... until she suspects he may be playing around (which he is not). The more Monte resists Marie, the more determined she becomes to land him.

Round and round it goes with Marie inserting herself in Monte's life while dumb Flo thinks he's after Miss Hofer (Esther Ralston). The whole conceit is based on no one's being able to see the obvious. This might seem like a sly sex romp but Marie's character is just not likable nor are we ever given any reason for her disdain of Adolphe.

Mizzi should have been tossed out on her ear after causing all this trouble.

An excellent score by the Mont Alto group.

Settling in Hollywood and freed from the whims of Mary Pickford, Ernst Lubitsch moved from the independent distributor United Artists to the minor studio Warner Brothers where he was allowed to make the first film in his career that really feels like a Lubitsch film. He'd touched on the ideas and tone here and there, mostly in his comedies The Doll and The Oyster Princess, but there was an embrace of silly physical comedy that seemed a bit out of step with his later work while engaging in more overt forms of farce. Not to imply that those didn't work, but they were just different. Now, with The Marriage Circle, Lubitsch was quickly settling into his domestic and romantic concerns between men and women that embrace wittiness rather than silliness.

Set in Vienna, the film is the story of two couples and a single man. The first couple are Professor Josef Stock (Adolphe Menjou) and his wife Mizzie (Marie Prevost), a pair who have been married for some time and have lost the spark of romance between them. Mizzie is best friends to Charlotte (Florence Vidor) who is newly married to Dr. Braun (Monte Blue), and the couple are deeply, earnestly in love. Dr. Braun has an associate, Dr. Mueller (Creighton Hale) who is smitten with Charlotte but also has the wherewithal to not actually act on it. Jealousy, intended adultery, and mistaken intentions end up driving the plot of the film as Mizzie decides that she's going to have an affair with Dr. Braun because he can obviously bring romance to her that her husband no longer offers. Meanwhile, Charlotte confides in Mizzie because she thinks that Dr. Braun is actually intent on an affair with the young Miss Hofer (Esther Ralston), and Professor Stock is so convinced of his wife's infidelity that he hires a private detective to follow her and gather evidence (that he guarantees he'll collect and lead to a divorce).

The joys in the film early are the lightly farcical elements, mostly around Charlotte thinking that Dr. Braun is infatuated with Miss Hofer, so she ends up pushing Mizzie towards Dr. Braun, thinking that it will blunt Dr. Braun's potential infidelities. The look on Mizzie's face as Charlotte literally pushes her into Dr. Braun's arms during a dance is really funny. And yet, there's always a satirical and sharp edged undertone to what's going on. Charlotte knows that something is wrong somewhere, and she trusts the one woman she shouldn't to help fix it. That helps the film veer really closely to something far more tragic than it turns out to be.

Dr. Braun ends up being a good man caught up in the wiles of an unscrupulous woman, and it seems like everything is going to go against him. Dr. Mueller thinks that he's cheating on his wife with Mizzie. Mizzie thinks he's just playing hard to get. Professor Stock ends up convinced, through his private investigator's work, that Dr. Braun is definitely having an affair with Mizzie. It's Dr. Braun's social standing that's at risk here, never his business or his life, but you can feel the edges of everything collapsing around him even though he has no way of making it better despite his best efforts. For a solid twenty minutes, I was convinced that this was going to be a tragedy.

And then things turn around. Just desserts are served. Social reputations are saved, and Dr. Braun ends up with the last laugh while two unlikely potential lovers end up leaving Vienna together. There's real delight in this ending because the character work had been so solidly built.

Now, I've complained pretty consistently that Lubitsch's characters have been thin through his silent period, in particular in his more tragic skewing historical films. I wonder if that's something to do with the writer of the film's scenario, Paul Bern, an Irving Thalberg devotee later in life. Lubitsch had regularly worked with Hanns Kraly and Norbert Falk while in Germany, but Bern seems to have understood how to build character in a silent film more naturally. The film's story is stripped of unnecessaries. It's not intimately tied to Vienna itself and could honestly have taken place in any major city of the time. The jobs of the individuals aren't that important and rarely get mentioned or really addressed directly. It's really about building up a cache of five characters and letting them operate within the rather plain looking surroundings, offering them a chance to bring themselves out of the realm of caricature and into actual character. Lubitsch allows his camera to let Mizzie be herself, her own awful self, and Stock to be himself, his own, detached self, in such a way that their relationship makes sense quickly, setting the groundwork very efficiently for Mizzie to understandably form designs on a more romantic man than her own husband.

The Marriage Circle is quite comfortably Lubitsch's most successful film up to this point. Whether it was the freedom from German company Ufa's house styles, his former writers, lessons he'd learned working for Mary Pickford, or the introduction of a new, talented writer in Paul Bern, Lubitsch was finding his voice more comfortably than ever. It may not end up being one of Lubitsch's great films, but it's the first film that is firmly Lubitsch while also being consistently entertaining and even a bit touching.

One near constant in the history of cinema is that romantic comedies tend to follow a very specific pattern. Chance encounters lead to romantic inclinations, and possibly drama in established relationships, but ultimately everyone is happy in the end - or at least most characters are, while anyone painted as a more antagonistic figure is probably left out in the cold. Even though we generally know the story before it's ever told, the finer points of the narrative can make all the difference. With slightly more somberly toned drama, this iteration is a little bit of a deviation from the genre norm, written with just enough deftness that for most of the length I wasn't actually sure exactly how it would end. Though hardly revelatory, 'The marriage circle' is fairly worthwhile.

All those small moments that cumulatively build into the divisions and connections between the characters are clever, and endearing as a viewer. Characterizations and intertitles aren't especially noteworthy, but the overall narrative is complete and cohesive, if unremarkable in retrospect nearly 100 years on. The scene writing is pleasantly engaging - a series of light scheming, misunderstandings, and near misses, with timing and cues just right to build the story with mild comedy. While their roles are pretty straightforward, the assembled cast put in solid performances to inhabit the parts and bring the tale to life. As the plot focuses most of all on the dynamics between Charlotte, Franz, and Mizzie, their respective actors get the most time in front of the camera, and Florence Vidor, Monte Blue, and Marie Prevost demonstrate suitable range, nuance, and physicality to communicate the mix of emotions sans sound or dialogue.

Whether one loves romantic comedies or hates them, there is nothing here to radically change one's mind about the genre. Meanwhile, enjoyable as this particular feature is, and for whatever tiny variations in the formula, there's nothing so outstanding about it that would make it a must-see. Yet it's ably written and directed, with capable performances from all involved, and is sufficiently appealing to keep us watching and entertained. Provided one is receptive to pictures from the silent era, and open to romcoms above all, 'The marriage circle' is an agreeable, satisfying diversion that's worth a look if you have the opportunity.

Silent cinema is not inherently inferior to the sound cinema, but many silent pictures, especially those from the early-to-mid 1920s, seem stilted in comparison to their talkie counterparts due to an over-reliance on title cards, and a lack of faith in the audience's ability to "read" images. Fortunately, they aren't all like this, thanks to the inventive boldness of the era's greatest filmmakers.

To start at the very beginning (a very good place to start), The Marriage Circle is the first comedy Ernst Lubitsch made in Hollywood. It's been pointed out that there was an abrupt change in pace compared to his earlier Berlin comedies, which were non-stop riotous farces. This is true, but The Marriage Circle also sees an enormous shift in tone. Lubitsch's pictures in his home country were absurd to the point of being surreal, staged with an emphasis on exaggeration and peopled with theatrical caricatures. The Marriage Circle however depicts a reasonably realistic situation, albeit a comically improbable one. There is no slapstick here, but neither is it a witty verbal comedy. Instead the humour derives from numerous misunderstandings as five characters become innocently entangled a complex love pentagon. In this, the audience is omniscient – we know everything that is going on – whereas each character knows only enough to make them misconstrue. Lubitsch's problem then, was how to convey this to the audience without spoon-feeding them every detail, and above all keep it funny.

He does it, not just by showing us everything, but by showing us how things are seen by everyone. The camera is never merely presentational; it is always within the action. In virtually every shot, we are either seeing things from a character's point of view or we are focusing on a character's reaction. The angles are never external, watching the players interact with one another; they are always down the line, putting us inside the interaction. And Lubitsch is brave enough – and knows we are intelligent enough – to switch quickly from one perspective to another. For example, in the scene where Mizzi (thinking she is onto something) embraces Dr Braun, we go from Muller seeing them from behind and assuming Mizzi is Charlotte, to his seeing Charlotte in the waiting room (and thus realising the woman in the embrace can't have been Charlotte), to Braun realising Charlotte is watching, to Charlotte realising Braun has been dallying with a female patient… whom she doesn't realise is Mizzi! As you can see, it all sound rather confusing when put it into words, but on screen it's a cinch to follow.

But that's not all that's going on here. As well as getting the right angles on the action, Lubitsch throws in some subtle tricks to imply rather than state the way things are. In the opening scene, it is clearly established that the Stocks's marriage is not the most harmonious, but it is one simple moment that reveals the true extent of the breakdown. Adolphe Menjou sees his wife get into a cab with another man, assuming (wrongly of course!) she may be having an affair. He turns to the camera, his expression unreadable. And then, slowly, a smile spreads over his face.

And this leads me neatly onto the next point, that it is as much the skills of the actors that make this wordless fiasco workable. The two lead men, Adolphe Menjou and Monte Blue, are not comedy actors in the normal sense, but they exhibit great comic timing and control. Just as the story is believable but unlikely, their performances are naturalistic but extreme. Menjou is the master of the withering glance and the long-suffering sulk. You get the impression, just by looking at his face, that here is a man who was not cut out for marriage. Blue, on the other hand, expertly portrays the complete opposite, a modest and honest man who seems unaware of his own attractiveness. You pick up his character from some neat little gestures; such as him nervously pulling at his collar to cool off – something you normally only see cartoon characters doing. Florence Vidor has the restrained demeanour of the only entirely normal person caught up in this situation, and gives a wonderful straight performance that counterpoints all the others. Creighton Hale is the only one of the players who is somewhat hammy and unrealistic, but as a more marginal and somewhat ridiculous character, he is allowed, and even helps give the picture its slightly silly edge. Marie Prevost is the only one of the five who is not exceptional, but she is by no means bad, and at least fits the part.

Lubitsch himself claimed this was his favourite of all his own pictures, and the only one which if he had to do again he would change nothing. It was well liked by his contemporaries too, and in the dying days of the silent picture you can see a significant move towards more sedate and subtle silent comedies, especially in the work of directors like Rene Clair and Leo McCarey. And after that of course, the talkies would come along, and it would all change again.

This was Lubitsch's first film for Paramount following Rosita with Mary Pickford and sees him in transcendent form.

A highly sophisticated comedy set in Vienna (possibly to allow for the outrageous conduct of the characters)and rich in complex farce scenarios and intelligent narrative twists played by an excellent cast.

Marie Prevost is extraordinary as the relentless pursuer of the happily married Dr Franz Braum, happily married that is to her best friend played by Florence Vidor. Adolphe Menjou offers a characteristically fine performance as the betrayed husband seeking divorce from his wayward wife. His expressions are hysterical as he reveals his caustic feelings towards his spouse. This film explores issues of marriage, commitment, fidelity and temptation in the Lubitsch style. A very funny, touching comedy that displays Lubitsch's talent for understated sophisticated comedy. This stands alongside some of his best films such as The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not to be as an equal.

A superb, honest, tender romantic comedy of manners, which features acting today's performers would be hard to match. You can laugh and feel for these characters. Ernst Lubitsch's smart direction keeps the movie always interesting, never dated.

"The Marriage Circle" should be required viewing for today's filmmakers. They'd learn how to reveal characters in emotionally complicated situations with minimum dialogue. And how to tell a story with minimum dialogue. And be funny.

I had to see this film for two reasons: I love silent movies and I love the films of Ernst Lubitsch. So, since it was BOTH, I felt it would be a terrific film. Unfortunately, it really was nothing out of the ordinary--even if the film looked good.

The film is about the wacky world of adultery. It concerns two couples and a guy who all get wrapped up in a case of partner-hopping. One lady is married to a nice guy but all she seems interested in doing is chasing men. He suspects and hires a private detective to follow her. The current object of her desire is her best friend's husband. As for this friend and her husband, they are both idiots. He wants to be a good and faithful husband but puts himself in bad situations. Several times throughout the film, I just wanted to see him belt the hussy! As for his wife, I really, really disliked her. Again and again, she pushed her husband away from her and distrusted him--as if she was trying to get him to cheat on her. And, at the same time, the husband's partner starts making the moves on her.

All this is supposed to be sophisticated and witty. The problem is, it's not the least bit witty. It manages to make adultery seem a bit dull, actually. And, as the characters are mostly unlikable, I found it really hard to actually care about them or their plights. At best, this film is ordinary. Fortunately, Lubitsch went on to far better things.

Have always found Ernst Lubitsch to be a very gifted director. When he was at his best, like with 'Trouble in Paradise', 'The Shop Around the Corner', 'Heaven Can Wait', 'To Be or Not to Be' and 'The Merry Widow', he was brilliant. Although so many directors at their worst fared far worse than him, Lubitsch was not immune from disappointment. Was not crazy about 'That Uncertain Feeling' for example and 'Eyes of the Mummy' was a dud.

'The Marriage Circle', his first film for Hollywood when diverting away from his German silents, however is thankfully closer to Lubitsch being on top form than being a disappointment or a slightly conflicted sort of film (he also had those early on). Instead it is one very well rounded, quite beautifully so even, circle. It was remade as 'One Hour With You' in 1932, which was just as good if not quite with the story being a little better done in 'The Marriage Circle'.

My only complaint of 'The Marriage Circle' is the ending, which felt abrupt and on the silly side. Which also coincidentally happened to the weak link of 'One Hour With You' too.

Otherwise it really sparkles as a film and one of Lubitsch's best early efforts and where his trademark style was starting to emerge. It did become even more refined from 'The Love Parade' onwards, but one can really see the famed wit and sophistication in his direction here. He also opens up the action enough so that it never becomes stage bound, while not trying to do too much avoiding the danger of the style swamping what's going on. The production values still look very elegant now, especially the clever photography that always feels part of the action and sumptuous decor.

Script is full of smart wit that is sharp and never less than very amusing. The story is also smart and only got a little silly at the end, the telling of it is also full of energy and sophisticated. It is also very touching in parts, with the romantic relationship tenderly handled and the subject done in good taste. Not a dull moment in sight. The cast are on top form with sparkling and never static chemistry together, with Marie Prevost and Adolphe Menjou particularly good.

In conclusion, great. 9/10

007: Marriage Circle (1924) - released 2/10/1924, viewed 7/27/05.

Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins his bid for leadership of Soviet Russia. The 1924 Winter Olympics commence in Chamonix, France. Petrograd is renamed Leningrad. The U.N. recognizes the Soviet Union. Mohandes Gandhi is released from prison on medical grounds. The gas chamber used for the first time in an execution in Nevada.

BIRTHS: Sabu Dastagir. DEATHS: Vladimir Lenin, Woodrow Wilson.

KEVIN: We now come to a more unusual entry, a silent sex comedy from a soon-to-be-renowned German filmmaker. I didn't know what to expect from Ernst Lubitsch's Marriage Circle. As it turned out, I enjoyed it very much. Each scene seemed funnier and more engaging than the last. I loved the characters, and I was intrigued by the way the film was performed. Although it was probably done often, it seems like it'd be difficult to adapt a stage play, full of spoken dialogue, to the silent screen. But this one does it wonderfully. The actors all do an excellent job of expressing every emotion and nearly every word without us being able to hear them at all, and with very few title cards necessary. We've got plenty more Lubitsch films further along in the sound era, and I'm looking forward to watching them all.

DOUG: I must be honest, I didn't think a comedy like this could possibly work as a silent film. There's not a lot of action happening like with Keaton or Chaplin. There are plenty of characters interacting and bickering. I had suspected that this started out as a play before making the leap to film, and this at a time when film and stage were even more different than they are now. With the dialogue cards only revealing the most essential lines, the actors have to absolutely sell it. And they do. It took me a little while to figure out exactly who was who and what everyone was doing, but once I got it, the movie was a lot of fun. There are a lot of good twists and turns that manage to work despite the lack of sound; When Charlotte suspects her husband Franz is having an affair, she enlists her best friend Mizzi to watch him at a party, unaware that it is in fact Mizzi that Franz is having the affair with. We had a lot of fun filling in the dialogue ourselves, and it is never hard to understand what the characters are thinking.

Last film: Our Hospitality (1923). Next film: The Thief of Bagdhad (1924).

The Movie Odyssey is an exhaustive, chronological project where we watch as many milestone films as possible, starting with D.W. Griffith's Intolerance in 1916 and working our way through, year by year, one film at a time. We also write a short review for each and every film. In this project, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of the time period, the films of the era, and each film in context, while at the same time just watching a lot of great movies, most of which we never would have watched otherwise.

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.

Mainly of interest to those looking for Lubitsch touches, of which there are a goodly number. Hollywood has had a difficult time cleaning up European sex comedies for the American market without losing the zip.

This picture is an example of this problem.

Very good costumes and sets, but the story is not engaging.

The Marriage Circle (1924) : Brief Review -

Ernst Lubitsch in silent era > talkie era, and I can have a roundtable argument for that. One of the finest comedies ever made on marriage, affairs, or anything around it. The so-called "Lubitsch touch," which was hyped by the talkies, works better in the silent era, at least for me. I have found Lubitsch's silent era films like "I Don't Want To Be A Man" (1918), "The Doll" (1919), and "The Oyester Princess" (1919) better than his talkies like "If I had a Million" (1932), "The Merry Widow" (1934), "Ninotchka" (1939), "To Be Or Not To Be" (1942), "Heaven Can Wait" (1943), "Cluny Brown" (1946), and "In The Good Old Summertime" (1949). The last two are superb flicks actually and I enjoyed them the most amongst all, while "The Shop Around the Corner" (1940) tops the list by a wide margin. From today onward, there's going to be a lot of shuffling in the list as "The Marriage Circle" comes out as a huge surprise to me. A hilarious marriage comedy with all those influential, messy, and misunderstood situations of affairs and cheating. A perfect combo of everything in the writing and an outstanding screenplay. I can't remember how many Indian films and daily soaps have copied all those conflicts from here and called them their own. It's hard to believe that this was written almost a century ago. Lothar Schmidt's stage play must have left audiences in splits back then. I had so much fun watching it on the screen with intertitles that I can't imagine how much fun it would have been for those who saw the play live. The climax had me shouting out loud, "Oh.. my.. God.. That's it". "Didn't we kiss each other?" asks she, in front of her husband and the other side.. wait, I'm not supposed to spoil the fun, right? Just watch it, have a blast, and then tell others not to keep this gem underrated. Typically, love and marriage triumph, but the mess is fantastic and Timeless!

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest.

When I have to rely to external sources (like the Wikipedia or the IMDb) to try to understand what really happens in the film (and those sources sometimes disagree with each other), than I suppose something has gone wrong. With the film, with me, with both.

To whom was Dr. Franz Braun going to give the flowers? We (the audience) are never told that.

Why is Mizzie Stock trying to seduce Franz Braun? Has she fallen in love with him? Is she trying to blackmail him? Does she want to show - in a sort of inner revenge of an envious woman - to her friend Charlotte Braun (Franz's wife) that her marriage is not as heavenly as she thinks? We (the audience) are never told that.

Why is Franz Braun repetedly seen kissing Mizzie? Is he in love? Is he just stupid?

To top it all off, why Dr. Gustav Mueller (Charlotte's secret admirer), in the end, reunites with Mizzie (who he has never met before)?

Why, maestro?