Ernst Lubitsch | Through the Shattered Lens

Last night, I watched The Smiling Lieutenant, a musical comedy from 1931. I recorded it off of TCM as a part of the 31 Days of Oscar and I have to admit that I really was not expecting much. While I love old movies and I have a special place in my heart for pre-code movies and their obsession with lingerie and suggestive winks, I was concerned that The Smiling Lieutenant was a musical that was made at a time when the Hollywood studios were still figuring out how to use sound to tell a story. I worried that the film would be one of those extremely creaky and overly theatrical movies that you always run the risk of coming across whenever you explore the cinema of the early 30s.

But you know what? I was pleasantly surprised. The Smiling Lieutenant is an undeniably old-fashioned film and yes, there were a few scenes that felt a bit too stagey. Compared to what modern audiences are used to, some of the acting does seem stilted. This is a film that will demand a bit of adjustment on the part of the viewer. But, with all that in mind, The Smiling Lieutenant is still an enjoyable little movie.

The story is charmingly simple. In Vienna, Lt. Nikki von Preyn (Maurice Chevalier) is in love with Franzi (Claudette Colbert), the worldly and free-spirited orchestra leader. However, Nikki makes the mistake of winking at Franzi while in the presence of Princess Anna (Miriam Hopkins). When Anna takes offense, Nikki says that he was only winking because Anna is so beautiful. Anna immediately falls in love with Nikki and demands to marry him. She explains that if Nikki doesn’t marry her, she’ll marry an American suitor which would totally scandalize Vienna.

Doing his patriotic duty, Nikki marries Anna. However, Nikki still longs for the more experienced Franzi and spends his time pining for her. Realizing that her husband is in love with another woman, Anna confronts Franzi and this is exactly where, if this was a modern film, there would be either be a huge cat fight or Anna and Franzi would team up to destroy Nikki. However, since this is a 1931 pre-code film, Franzi realizes that Anna loves Nikki. As a result, Franzi decides to help her boyfriend’s wife win back his interest.

And how does Franzi do this? By giving Anna a makeover! As Franzi explains in song, it’s time for Anna to “jazz up (her) lingerie!”

The Smiling Lieutenant is an entertaining movie. I suppose that many would probably consider it to be the epitome of “fluff” but so what? I imagine that for audiences in 1931, a film like The Smiling Lieutenant provided a nice escape from the Great Depression and isn’t escape one of the best things that a good film can provide? Colbert, Hopkins, and Chevalier all give likable performances and, even 85 years after it was first released, it’s a fun little movie.

The Smiling Lieutenant was a huge box office hit and it was nominated for best picture of the year. However, it lost to Grand Hotel.

So, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve got a love for film trivia in general and Oscar trivia in particular. I also love to make lists. Last night, these twin loves led to me staying up way too late making a list of every single film ever nominated for best picture. As I looked down at that list, I thought to myself, “That’s not even a 1,000 movies. Why it would only take a few years for me to see and then review every single film ever nominated.” So, I am now a woman on a mission. Well, actually, I’m on several missions but this is definitely one of them.

Unfortunately, there is one nominee that its doubtful that I — or anyone else will ever see — and that is 1928’s The Patriot. Not only was it the last silent film to be nominated for best picture but it’s also the only nominee to subsequently become a “lost” film. With the exception of a few publicity stills and the film’s trailer, all trace of The Patriot has vanished. Maybe there’s a copy of it sitting in the corner of someone’s attic. It has happened in the past, after all. More likely though, the Patriot is simply gone.

Here’s the trailer:

The Patriot was based on the 1801 assassination of Tsar Paul I of Russia. Paul was played by Emil Jannings who, the previous year, had won the very first Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Last Command. Paul’s assassin — the patriot of the title — was played by character actor Lewis Stone who later played almost everyone’s father in the 1930s. Director Lubitsch was, like Jannings, a relatively recent arrival from Germany.

The Patriot was an expensive, “prestige” presentation that was pretty much doomed the moment that Al Jolson spoke in The Jazz Singer. With audiences now obsessed with “talking pictures,” the silent Patriot was a box office bomb. Paramount hastily withdrew the film from circulation, added a few sound effects (though no dialogue because of Jannings’s thick German accent), and then re-released the film with the little success. The Patriot — the last silent film nominated — lost to the first sound film to win Best Picture, Broadway Melody.

The box office failure of The Patriot pretty much drove the last nail into the coffin of the silent film era. Jannings reacted to the coming of sound by returning to his native Germany and continuing his film career there. He co-starred with Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel. As Germany’s most distinguished actor, Jannings was a supporter of Adolf Hitler and he appeared in several Nazi propaganda films during World War II. In 1945, following the fall of the Third Reich, Jannings reportedly carried his Oscar with him as he walked through the streets of Berlin. He died in Austria in 1950 at the age of 65.

Lewis Stone, meanwhile, prospered in sound films and was a busy character actor until he died of a heart attack in 1953. Reportedly, he dropped dead while chasing some neighborhood children who had been throwing rocks at his garage.

Ernest Lubitsch also had a very succesful career in Hollywood and specialized in sophisticated romantic comedies and musicals. While Jannings was making propaganda films for Hitler, Lubitsch was directing the anti-Nazi comedy, To Be Or Not To Be. He died of a heart attack in 1947, reportedly while having sex with a starlet who was auditioning for a role in his latest film.

The Patriot remains lost.