Lubitsch Musicals: Eclipse Series 8

Criterion Collection, $59.95

Musicals strike fear in the ears of mankind. When one pop musician famously admitted having had “it” in the ear before, he was bawling about Carousel! Papa Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) no doubt had “it” in orifices they hadn’t invented yet, because as with Criterion’s previous Eclipse set, Postwar Kurosawa, there’s a provocative postscript left off Lubitsch Musicals: pre-Code. Lubitsch’s ever-present cigar chew wasn’t just a roll of tobacco leaves; it was the hayloft, and before Will Hayes declared married couples only slept in twin beds in the mid-1930s, Paramount Studios’ boudoirs came the size of barns. Once One Hour With You (1932) opens on Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier in bed together, Lubitsch wastes little time in the living room or hall. In The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), Chevalier sips Claudette Colbert for breakfast the morning after their first duet, then later nightcaps Miriam Hopkins after a checkers match. Monte Carlo (1930) loosens able-bodied MacDonald on charisma-thin Jack Buchanan, whose sole raison d’être comes in the key of “Trimmin’ the Women,” which may or may not concern his count pretending to be a hairdresser. First and best of the foursome, 1929’s The Love Parade tops its follow-up’s “trim” with “Let’s Be Common,” a call to silk teddies, bathtubs, and dedicated domestics. No lip-syncing, no overdubs, just outbursts of innuendo every eight to 14 minutes to pinch the ample proceedings. By the time the leads reunite as a married couple in One Hour With You, Lubitsch and his stars (in their last collaboration) have all but abandoned musical foreplay. With formal implementation of the Hayes Code, Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder, and every filmmaker that screened a Lubitsch/Samson Raphaelson picture (Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner) danced the maestro’s proverbial love parade like Fred Astaire.

Also Out now …

The Milky Way (Criterion, $29.95): Buñuelian Bible stories, French, 1969, absurdist, blasphemous, and blessed by both Delphine Seyrig (“the Prostitute”) and a Shakespearian duel. Jesus gives good supper.

Cría Cuervos … (Criterion, $39.95): Fresh off 1973’s stinging Spanish standard, The Spirit of the Beehive, 10-year-old Ana Torrent buries Franco while mourning her own mama y papa. “If you had to pinpoint who [director Carlos Saura] is in his films, it’s Ana Torrent in this film,” insists Geraldine Chaplin in a second-disc doc. “Totally.”

This article appears in March 21 • 2008.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.