FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Ernst Lubitsch - Cluny Brown 

"Lubitsch Touch" is the name given to the thrill everyone gets to enjoy when they laugh along at a raunchy joke. Lubitsch loved those clever evasive maneuvers, the pans before it becomes obvious. He relished the arc of ambiguity that worked like a secret agreement between him and us, the audience. And lo and behold; this very agreement allowed the Berlin director from Spandau to never run afoul of the censors! Of course, the "2Lubitsch Touch" presupposes a certain knowledge of sex, romance, and the nuanced ways of behaving "adult. In Lubitsch's case, these are all fads to which he is sympathetic. In his film, he responds as sensitively as he does ironically. I think irony and a slight tendency toward cynicism made the Lubitsch comedies so timeless. Try it sometime, watch, say, Pretty Woman followed by Cluny Brown. You'll be amazed at which film sounds much more contemporary! In all his works, Lubitsch observes the all-too-human. How we react to it depends very much on our temperament. How do we ourselves relate to the pleasures of sexual transgression? What relation do we still have to true European sophistication, which is casually celebrated here? Lubitsch's comedies usually feature: A) Clueless aristocrats B) Snooty spitfires. They surround Lubitsch's heroes and their sly distrust of social conventions. The moment they break free from ridiculous social constraints, Lubitsch applauds. But he also recognizes the difficulty of this, to regulate his own life and love so freely. What solution does he offer? To join in and yet remove oneself whenever possible. Cluny Brown is Lubitsch's last film. The year is 1938, and anti-Nazi fugitive Adam Belinski (Charles Boyer) arrives in London. A wily man, he immediately makes himself at home and wins the affections of a pretty orphan girl (Jennifer Jones). Her name is Cluny Bown and the paths of Belinski and Brown will cross many times. There are, after all, economic barriers between them, and Lubitsch's comedy knows this like no other film of the time (but of course in Lubitsch's universe such barriers can be overcome, even if only very rarely). And the happiness? I think for Lubitsch it must be the pleasure of laughing at such absurdities of the world.