By Candlelight

... and I do not know why the folks at Universal don't do more to get treasures such as these out to the public, at least using the manufactured on demand method that Warner Brothers and MGM/UA are using.

This is one of the sophisticated precodes revolving around a series of mistaken identities and misrepresentations. The basic plot is that Josef (Paul Lukas) is butler to the carousing Prince Alfred von Rommer (Nils Asther). Josef helps the prince whenever he gets in a tight spot with one of his many lady friends - with that tight spot primarily consisting of protests and threats being raised by one of the ladies' husbands popping up unexpectedly. After one such episode the prince decides to take a vacation in Monte Carlo and he sends Josef on ahead with the luggage. On the train Josef notices an attractive young lady (Elissa Landi) and tries to make a play for her himself. He is only modestly successful until the young woman sees Josef's luggage and notices the prince's coat of arms. Now Josef has to pretend to be the prince in order to continue courting the lady. What happens when the real prince arrives? Is the young lady who she seems to be? Will those angry husbands now be after Josef since he has taken the prince's identity? Watch and find out.

The main negative in this film is the casting of Paul Lukas as Josef. This time it is not his accent that is the problem but his age. It is a bit of a stretch to believe that a man in his 40's would have such wide-eyed hero worship for the younger prince and his philandering ways. Nils Asther as the prince gives a charming and effortless performance, behaving genuinely amused at the uncomfortable situations in which he is placed. Like Lukas, Asther also had a heavy accent, and that and a contract dispute pretty much finished his acting career shortly after this film was made.

Highly recommended as one of the great sophisticated precodes, although you probably won't be able to find a good print of it. I know I haven't been able to find one yet.

I should not be surprised at all that James Whale made an Ernst Lubitsch movie. Everyone was doing it. Everyone loved Lubitsch, and they all wanted to imitate him. What Whale made, from a script cowritten by Hans Kraly, Lubitsch's early writing partner, is a fun little ersatz Lubitsch film that misses the Lubitsch Touch (which Billy Wilder called the Super Joke with a specific structure) but has a similar feel. It's a small delight, not near the top of Lubitsch's work or even the best of the imitators like Wyler in The Good Fairy, but it's a fun trifle of a film anyway.

Josef (Paul Lukas) is manservant to the Prince Alfred von Romer (Nils Asther) of Austria. Josef likes to read the works of Casanova while he admires Prince Alfred's ease with the ladies, like what he says to the Countess von Rischenheim (Dorothy Revier), even offering her a very valuable cigarette case that she refuses because how could she explain it to her husband, the Count von Rischenheim (Lawrence Grant)? When Josef takes a train out to the country alone, ahead of the Prince to prepare for his arrival, Josef meets Marie (Elissa Landi), a pretty girl who also reads Casanova and who coincidentally has the same sleeper car as Josef. He's smitten with her, thinking she's a lady and trying out his moves learned from the Prince. She becomes smitten with him when she mistakes him for the Prince. They get off the train to take some time at a country fair. They miss the train. They connect some more.

So, we have a pure Lubitsch setup. Set in Vienna, dealing with two pairs, one royalty the other servants, and a whole lot of masquerade as people pretend to be those they are not. The energy is heightened, bordering on vaudevillian farce rather than Lubitsch's more restrained and witty stylings, and there is no Lubitsch Touch, however Whale creates real momentum and charm as he pushes Josef, in particular, through the mechanisms of the plot. It's a delicate balance between keeping up the fiction for Marie that he's the prince, Prince Alfred having a good time helping Josef along without Josef's input, Josef's embarrassment at seeing his Prince treat him subserviently, and Marie's own secret.

It's not like it's hard to guess her secret either. Whale telegraphs it even if he doesn't make it explicit until the final act.

And once again I'm left with a similar problem when I was enjoying Lubitsch's musicals. There's both too much to mention and too little. The story is spare, a simple farce hinging on mistaken identities, but each scene is filled with lightly comic moments that come and go, flittering away in the wind as Whale just propels the film forward. There's no time to linger on a gag or a witty rejoinder. There's more business to be had in 70-minutes of runtime.

And while I don't think the comedy builds like Lubitsch did, it does keep going at this breakneck pace that works in the film's favor. It's a simple film that understands the kind of comedy it needs to deliver, the kind of character it needs to populate it with, and the pace at which to deliver it in order to entertain.

I should take note of Kraly's name. He's one of four writers on the film, and by the end of the professional relationship with Lubitsch (which ended when Kraly stole Lubitsch's wife from him), I was noting that Kraly's scripts were often just not good enough for Lubitsch. Here, he's one of four voices contributing to the script, and I assume he was a very early voice, providing the setting and characters in the broadest possible terms while the other writers (Ruth Cummings, F. Hugh Herbert, and Karen DeWolf), probably Universal staff writers, punched it up. I assume Whale was part of that process as well (since DeWolf is credited as just dialogue, I assume she worked with Whale most), but this tortured writing process was kind of standard in the studio system. One guy wrote an initial draft followed by others (many of whom went uncredited). It's just a random thought I had the second I saw Kraly's name that percolated as the film continued, and I liked it more than anything Kraly had written for Lubitsch.

Anyway, it's not great comedy, but it's solid stuff. It's a Lubitsch imitation that slightly misses the Lubitsch mark, but Whale does the job well here. It may not be the height of his Universal monster work, but By Candlelight is a gem worthy of appraisal.

Robert Wyler was a director for Universal whom Laemmle Jr. had promoted; and he had a familial connection. Robert Wyler's maternal grandmother was a first cousin of Universal owner, Carl Laemmle.

There had been turn downs by Wyler, Whale getting the assignments instead, and also cases in which Wyler had failed to be able to make a satisfactory start, and then Whale was asked to continue them.

'By Candlelight' was one of those latter cases.

It had been very successful a few years earlier as a British stage play. Because Whale had already turned down some efforts by Robert Wyler, who did not have the talent to direct, he was nearly forced to take on the film. Perhaps it was a matter of discretion over valor. In the end, he took it on.

He took Ted Kent, his favorite cutter, and the then competent John Mescall as the camera director. Whale started the film over from the beginning.

He filmed the script as it was for the most part, but he also made a game of it, putting in his own special tricks of the trade.

Carl Laemmle was very happy with the result. He liked the film himself, and it brought in good money just in the nick of time to help save the studio once more, adding some good revenue to the spectacular revenues from Whale's 'The Invisible Man' which were then really piling up.

Whale had a contract offer from Paramount as director. He was very actively considering it, but wasn't sure of LeBaron's own firmness in the position of producer; it was LeBaron's offer.

Laemmle offered Whale both a set of raises to automatically kick in, and producer's credit even though Whale would not actually be the producer.

And it's a good thing for us that Whale took Laemmle's offer, or we'd not have had 'Bride of Frankenstein' or 'Show Boat'.

But I'll always wonder what would have become of Whale's career had he taken LeBaron's offer to come and direct at a really powerful studio, which could have offered him some of the best talent, actors, writers and crew, in the world.

This is a straight comedy of errors type of thing which although some of its humour is still funny and it's is expertly put together, it's nothing special but still a good example of early thirties middle of the road comedy.

The problem with this is that you've got to like the characters to enjoy this fully but they're just not made relatable enough. Your main man here that you're watching is Paul Lukas and once you get it in your head that he sounds just like Bela Lugosi and looks Dracula in HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA you can't warm easily to him. There's actually a scene where he kisses 'Marie's' neck commenting on her perfect throat......there must have been some funny outtakes from that shoot!

But back to the review..... James Whale's direction makes this feel genuine, as though they're real people. It looks classy and paces itself just right. The characters however seem a little distant and the lead (Dracula audition Hopeful?) is dishonest and a liar so not very likeable. Unusually for a James Whale film but it just doesn't have any magic. And the score is weirdly overpowering. Universal must have been getting their money's worth from the orchestra - it never stops. Were they just showing off to their competitors that they can now afford an orchestra by using it over every single second of your picture.

Charming film. Lukas is not quite suited to the role. Music is played too loud throughout although it is good music. Whale must have done this quick. Not a whole lot of Whale genius here. Still enjoyable for fans of the period.