Ernst LubitschFilmography

Cluny Brown

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Norman Ainsley, Jennifer Jones, Sara Allgood, Charles Boyer, Peter Lawford, Helen Walker, Margaret Bannerman, Florence Bates, Reginald Gardiner

Synopsis: The time is just prior to World War II. Lovely Cluny Brown (Jennifer Jones) is the niece of a London plumber; when her uncle is indisposed, Cluny rolls up her sleeves and takes a plumbing job at a society home, where she meets a handsome Czech author (Charles Boyer) - a refugee who has fled the Read More

A Royal Scandal

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Tallulah Bankhead, Charles Coburn, Anne Baxter, William Eythe, Vincent Price

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch was the original director for A Royal Scandal, but illness forced him to bow out; his replacement was Otto Preminger, who did his utmost to retain the "Lubitsch touch." Based on a play by Lajos Biro and Melchior Lengyel, the film dwells upon a fictional incident in the life of Read More

Heaven Can Wait

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main, Laird Cregar

Synopsis: On the day of his death in 1943, the spirit of Henry Van Cleave (Don Ameche) obligingly heads for the place where so many people had previously told him to go. The immaculately dressed septuagenarian arrives at the outer offices of Hades, where he is greeted by His Excellency (Laird Cregar), the Read More

To Be or Not to Be

Crew: Director, Producer, Screen Story

Actors: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch directs the 1942 political satire classic To Be or Not to Be, which marked the final screen appearance of comedienne Carole Lombard. In Warsaw at the beginning of WWII, Maria Tura (Lombard) and husband Joseph (Jack Benny) perform anti-Nazi plays with their theater troupe until they Read More

That Uncertain Feeling

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Merle Oberon, Melvyn Douglas, Burgess Meredith, Alan Mowbray, Olive Blakeney

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch's That Uncertain Feeling was previously filmed by the director in 1925 as Kiss Me Again; both versions were inspired the Victorien Sardou-Emile de Najac bedroom farce Let's Get a Divorce. Six year into her marriage to preoccupied insurance salesman Larry Baker (Melvyn Douglas), Jill Read More

The Shop Around the Corner

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut, Sara Haden

Synopsis: The Shop Around the Corner is adapted from the Hungarian play by Nikolaus (Miklos) Laszlo. Budapest gift-shop clerk Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and newly hired shopgirl Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) hate each other almost at first sight. Kralik would prefer the company of the woman with whom Read More

Ninotchka

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Bela Lugosi, Sig Rumann, Felix Bressart, Ina Claire

Synopsis: "Garbo Laughs!" declared the ads for Ninotchka. In the face of dwindling foreign revenues, MGM decided to put Greta Garbo, a bigger draw in Europe than the US, in a box-office-savvy comedy, engaging the services of master farceur Ernst Lubitsch to direct. The film opens in Paris during the Read More

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Gary Cooper, Edward Everett Horton, David Niven, Elizabeth Patterson

Synopsis: The great Ernst Lubitsch directed this farce (written by Charles M. Brackett and Billy Wilder) about a free-wheeling millionaire, Michael Brandon (Gary Cooper), who enjoys getting married but has a hard time staying married: he's had seven wives and is looking for number eight. He thinks he may Read More

Angel

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Melvyn Douglas, Edward Everett Horton, Herbert Mundin

Synopsis: Generally considered one of director Ernst Lubitsch's lesser works, Angel stars Marlene Dietrich as Maria, the neglected wife of Sir Frederick Barker (Herbert Marshall), a British diplomat who travels often and seems little concerned with his spouse. Maria has nearly reached her breaking point Read More

Desire

Crew: Producer

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, John Halliday, William Frawley, Ernest Cossart

Synopsis: In this frothy romantic adventure, Marlene Dietrich plays Madeleine de Beaupre, a devious jewel thief. After sneaking a valuable string of pearls away from jeweler Aristide Duval (Ernest Cossart), Madeleine attempts to flee Paris, leaving a trail that will instead implicate psychiatrist Dr. Read More

The Merry Widow

Crew: Director

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Edward Everett Horton, Una Merkel, George Barbier

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch directs the 1934 musical comedy The Merry Widow, based on the 1905 operetta by Franz Lehar. In 1885, King Achmed (George Barbier) strives to protect the financial interests of his small, poor kingdom of Marshovia in Central Europe. When the kingdom's wealthiest widow, Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald Read More

Design for Living

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: Design for Living was based on the stage comedy by Noel Coward, though little of his dialogue actually made it to the screen. Playwright Fredric March and artist Gary Cooper both fall in love with Miriam Hopkins, an American living in Paris. Both men love the girl, and the girl can't make up her Read More

One Hour with You

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Genevieve Tobin, Charlie Ruggles, Roland Young

Synopsis: A musical remake of The Marriage Circle (1924), One Hour with You stars Maurice Chevalier as a Parisian doctor and Jeanette MacDonald as his loving wife. Chevalier is scrupulously faithful, much to the chagrin of his lovely female patients. But when MacDonald's best friend Genevieve Tobin insists Read More

Une Heure Pres De Toi

Crew: Director

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Lili Damita, Ernest Ferny, Pierre Etchepare

Synopsis: Une Heure Pres de Toi is the French-language version of Ernst Lubitsch's One Hour With You. A remake of Lubitsch's silent comedy The Marriage Circle, the film asks the musical question, "Can a handsome young doctor with a bevy of beautiful female patients remain faithful to his lovely wife?" It Read More

Broken Lullaby

Crew: Director

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Nancy Carroll, Phillips Holmes, Lucien Littlefield, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis:
Director Ernst Lubitsch gained international acclaim for his sophisticated romantic comedies, but he also had a talent for more serious themes, as evidenced by this 1932 drama. French musician Paul (Phillips Holmes) joined the Army at the height of WWI. On the field of battle, Paul shot and Read More

If I Had a Million

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, W.C. Fields, Charlie Ruggles, George Raft, Jack Oakie

Synopsis: Based on a story by Robert Andrews, If I Had a Million is a multipart comedy-drama employing Paramount's top directorial and acting talents. Refusing to leave his fortune to his grasping relatives, dying millionaire Richard Bennett selects several people at random from the phone book and bestows Read More

Trouble in Paradise

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charlie Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch used Laszlo Aladar's play The Honest Finder as a springboard for one of his most delightful early-'30s Paramount confections. Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins play Gaston and Lily, a pair of Parisian thieves, both disguised as nobility, who decide to rob lovely perfume company Read More

The Smiling Lieutenant

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins, Charlie Ruggles, George Barbier

Synopsis: Maurice Chevalier plays a 19th century Viennese lieutenant, conducting an affair with sexy violinist Claudette Colbert. While publicly flirting with Colbert, Chevalier is spotted by a dowdy princess (Miriam Hopkins), who thinks that the lieutenant's wink was meant for her. Forced to marry the Read More

Monte Carlo

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Jack Buchanan, Jeanette MacDonald, ZaSu Pitts, Claud Allister, Tyler Brooke

Synopsis: After the master of sophisticated romantic comedy, Ernst Lubitsch, directed Jeanette MacDonald in the smash hit The Love Parade, they were reunited a year later for this similarly frothy romp. Countess Vera Von Conti (MacDonald) is engaged to marry the dull Prince Otto Von Seibenheim (Claud Allister Read More

Paramount on Parade

Crew: Director

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Richard Arlen, Jean Arthur, Gary Cooper, William Austin, Clara Bow, Jack Oakie, George Bancroft

Synopsis: Considered the best of the all-star "studio" musicals of 1929 and 1930, Paramount on Parade utilized the talents of practically everyone on the Paramount Pictures payroll. Under the supervision of British musical-comedy favorite Elsie Janis, 11 top directors contributed to the project: Dorothy Arzner Read More

The Love Parade

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Lupino Lane, Lillian Roth, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Director Ernst Lubitsch's first talking picture, The Love Parade was a witty souffle about a royal "marriage of state." Jeanette MacDonald, the queen of Sylvania, is required to take a husband. Maurice Chevalier is a highborn Sylvanian diplomat called back to his country due to his amorous Read More

Eternal Love

Crew: Director

Actors: John Barrymore, Camilla Horn, Victor Varconi, Hobart Bosworth

Synopsis: Eternal Love was the last silent film of star John Barrymore and director Ernst Lubitsch; thereafter, both men would concentrate exclusively on talkies. Based on Der Konig der Bernina, a novel by Jakob Christopher Beer, the story is set in the Swiss Alps in 1812. Both forced into loveless Read More

The Patriot

Crew: Director, Editor, Producer

Actors: Emil Jannings, Lewis Stone, Florence Vidor, Neil Hamilton, Harry Cording

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch, well-known for his sophisticated romantic comedies, proved that he was equally adept at historical drama in this lavishly-mounted story. Count Pahlen (Lewis S. Stone) is a close and trusted friend of Paul I (Emil Jannings), a Russian Czar of the 18th century. Russia is in turmoil Read More

The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg

Crew: Director

Actors: Ramon Novarro, Norma Shearer, Jean Hersholt, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Philippe DeLacy

Synopsis: Even without the benefit of sound, The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg seems to be inundated by Franz Lehar's unforgettable songs. Director Ernst Lubitsch fashioned a gloriously schmaltzy, delightfully artificial rendition of the 1924 Lehar opera, which in turn was based on the 1902 play In Old Read More

So This Is Paris

Crew: Director

Actors: Monte Blue, Lilyan Tashman, André Beranger, Myrna Loy

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch's So This is Paris stars Monte Blue and Patsy Ruth Miller as a doctor and his wife. The couple is as faithful as the day is long--but when a dance team comprised of Lilyan Tashman and Andre Beranger make the scene, the days grow mighty short. Blue, Miller, Tashman and Berander spend Read More

Lady Windermere's Fan

Crew: Director, Editor

Actors: Ronald Colman, Irene Rich, May McAvoy, Bert Lytell, Edward Martindel

Synopsis: Unable to rely upon Oscar Wilde's epigrammatic dialogue to carry the day (this was, after all, the silent-film era), director Ernst Lubitsch substitutes verbal wit for the visual variety in his 1925 filmization of Lady Windermere's Fan. Ronald Colman has one of his first important screen roles as Read More

Kiss Me Again

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Marie Prevost, Monte Blue, John Roche, Clara Bow, Willard Louis

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch, the master of sophisticated comedy, directed this romantic silent romp starring the ill-fated Marie Prevost as LouLou, a married woman who develops an infatuation with a handsome musician. When LouLou asks her husband Gaston (Monte Blue) for a divorce, he shrewdly agrees without an Read More

Three Women

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: May McAvoy, Pauline Frederick, Lew Cody, Marie Prevost, Willard Louis

Synopsis: Even though director Ernst Lubitsch had only been in the U.S. for a little over a year, his soon-to-be-famous "touch" was already making itself known. This sophisticated society drama has a number of subtle, lightly humorous moments before the drama intensifies. The womanizing Edmund Lamont (Lew Cody Read More

Forbidden Paradise

Crew: Director

Actors: Pola Negri, Rod La Rocque, Adolphe Menjou, Pauline Starke, Fred Malatesta

Synopsis: Star Pola Negri and director Ernst Lubitsch, who created an international sensation with the German superproduction DuBarry, Woman of Passion, were reunited in the frothy Hollywood comedy/drama Forbidden Paradise. Negri is cast as Catherine, the Czarina of an unnamed but very Russian-looking Read More

Montmartre

Crew: Director

Actors: Pola Negri

Synopsis: It's a mystery why Paramount released this terrible film. Actress Pola Negri had filmed it years before in Europe and it was neither a credit to her nor to the director Ernst Lubitsch, who she has collaborated with on other, truly stunning films. The setting is Paris in the 1860s. Yvette (Negri) Read More

The Marriage Circle

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Florence Vidor, Monte Blue, Marie Prevost, Creighton Hale, Adolphe Menjou

Synopsis: Viennese doctor Monte Blue is madly in love with his wife Florence Vidor--so much so that many suspect that they aren't married at all! Vidor's best friend Marie Prevost is an incurable coquette; Marie's divorce-bound husband Adolphe Menjou hires detective Harry Myers to keep tabs on his wife. Read More

Rosita

Crew: Director

Actors: Mary Pickford, Holbrook Blinn, Irene Rich, George Walsh, Charles Belcher

Synopsis: This historical comedy-drama resulted from the unlikely collaboration of girlish silent star Mary Pickford and sophisticated German director Ernst Lubitsch (it was also Lubitsch's first American-made film). But at least the story, adapted from the novel Don Cesar de Bazon, came closer to Read More

Das Weib des Pharao

Crew: Director

Actors: Emil Jannings, Harry Liedtke, Dagny Servaes, Paul Wegener

Synopsis: While he was working in his native Germany, Ernst Lubitsch directed a number of historical pictures -- although this one is not that well-known today, it was one of the most spectacular. Emil Jannings stars in the title role of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Samlak, the king of the Ethiopians (Paul Read More

The Eyes of the Mummy

Crew: Director

Actors: Pola Negri, Emil Jannings

Synopsis: Considering the poor quality of this UFA-produced melodrama starring Pola Negri and Emil Jannings, it's quite likely the two actors played in it before doing Passion and One Arabian Night (known in Germany as Madame DuBarry and Sumurun respectively). Negri plays Marah, the high priestess of Read More

Deception

Crew: Director

Actors: Emil Jannings, Henny Porten

Synopsis: Passion wasn't the only spectacular Ernst Lubitsch film which he made in Germany before coming to the U.S. The ten-reel Deception may not have had the sensual Pola Negri, but it did have the formidable Emil Jannings playing King Henry VIII. This retelling of the romance between the king and Anne Read More

Die Bergkatze

Crew: Director

Actors: Pola Negri, Victor Janson, Paul Heidemann

Synopsis: The free-spirited daughter of a dangerous bandit falls for a handsome lieutenant in director Ernst Lubitsch's classic 1921 military satire. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide Read More

Vendetta

Crew: Director

Actors: Pola Negri, Magnus Stifter, Harry Liedtke

Synopsis: When this German-produced film reached the U.S., it was touted as the first Pola Negri film that wasn't a costume drama. In spite of this, Negri plays the same type of passionate character she did in her period films (something she was very good at, too). A longer version of it was released in Read More

Sumurun

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Pola Negri, Ernst Lubitsch

Synopsis: One Arabian Night is the inadequate American title bestowed upon director Ernst Lubitsch's brilliant German drama Sumurun. In what turned out to be his last on-camera appearance (he was a former slapstick comedian), Lubitsch stars as Yeggar, a hunchbacked clown who works with a travelling Read More

Anna Boleyn

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Anne Boleyn(Henny Porten) is coveted by King Henry VIII (Emil Jannings) when he tires of Queen Katherine. The ruler desires an heir to the throne, and Katherine has not provided one. Henry goes against the wishes of the pope, divorces Katherine, and forms the Church of England. Sir Henry Norris (Paul Hartmann Read More

Romeo und Julia Im Schnee

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Die Puppe

Crew: Director

Actors: Ossi Oswalda, Hermann Thimig, Victor Janson

Synopsis: As one of the acclaimed silent films made by director Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin, the romantic fantasy Die Puppe (AKA The Doll, 1919) concerns a young man almost completely devoid of vigor, who schemes to land a bride so that he can inherit a vast fortune. Instead of marrying a girl, he chooses to Read More

Rausch

Crew: Director

Madame Du Barry

Crew: Director

Actors: Emil Jannings

Synopsis: Before he became world-famous for his sophisticated sex farces, Ernst Lubitsch was primarily a director of outsized German "spectaculars." One such was Madame Du Barry, an operatic version of the life, loves and death of the legendary 18th-century French courtesan. Pola Negri plays DuBarry, who Read More

Die Austernprinzessin

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Meyer Aus Berlin

Crew: Director

Gypsy Blood

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The Ernst Lubitsch/Pola Negri version of Prosper Merimee's Carmen was filmed in Germany in 1918, but not released in the U.S. until the Spring of 1921. It sticks closely to the novel's plot -- La Camencita, a cigarette girl and smuggler (Negri), is loved by soldier Don Jose Navarro (Harry Read More

Ich Mochte Kein Mann Sein

Crew: Director

Actors: Ossi Oswalda, Curt Goetz, Margarete Kupfer

Synopsis: This hilarious three-reel farce from director Ernst Lubitsch stars Ossi Oswalda as Ossi, a vivacious young woman whose ideas of fun -- smoking cigarettes, playing cards, dating boys -- unnerves her stodgy Uncle (Ferry Silka) and even stodgier Governess (Margareta Kupfer). When Uncle has to go to Read More

Carmen

Crew: Director

Synopsis: World-renowned European actress Marguerite Sylva joined the legions of top female personalities who played Merimee's tragic gypsy heroine Carmen on the silver screen in the pre-1920 era. Less star-driven than the recent American versions of Carmen, this Italian production concentrates primarily on Read More

Wenn Vier Dasselbe Tun

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Hans Trutz Im Schlaraffenland

Als Ich War Tot

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Ernst Lubitsch, Louise Schenrich, Lanchen Voss

Synopsis: Writer/director Ernst Lubitsch also stars in this clever two-reel comedy, playing the devoted husband Ernst, whose marriage to Louise (Louise Schenrich) is made tense by the interferences of his mother-in-law (Lanchen Voss). Ernst goes to his club and gets involved in a lengthy chess match, and Read More

Wo Ist Mein Schatz?

Crew: Director

Schuhpalast Pinkus

Crew: Director

Blindekuh

Crew: Director, Screenwriter