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Lubitsch

It’s a big season for Ernst Lubitsch.

In one week, Joseph McBride will release “How Did Lubitsch Do It?” The book has already received substantial attention from the NYT. The title comes from a question Billy Wilder would often ask, as he made his own movies: “How would Lubitsch do it?” (Wilder himself made “Double Indemnity” and “Sunset Boulevard,” so he wasn’t some forgettable shmoe.)

I’m not a Lubitsch expert. I regret that Netflix does not offer even one Lubitsch film for streaming. (Netflix is weirdly deficient in the black-and-white-movie department; an exception is “To Kill a Mockingbird.”) I do have fond memories of “Ninotchka” at Film Forum: Greta Garbo is a crazed Soviet bureaucrat, Garbo meets a free-wheeling Parisian man, there’s some confusion around a Western-style joke (“A man at a diner orders coffee without cream, and five minutes later the water returns and says, Sorry, sir, we don’t have cream. Can it be without milk?”) Eventually, the Parisian gets Garbo to laugh; Garbo melts; love happens where we least expected it (except, of course, we expected it from the beginning). Take your boyfriend to see that movie, then get a thin-crust pizza and sit outside at Spunto on a spring or summer night: This is a perfect date.

Lubitsch had a major impact on Nora Ephron, who took a standard Lubitsch plot, “The Shop Around the Corner,” gave it some updates, and rechristened it “You’ve Got Mail.” (One thing Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks argue about, in that movie, is the dawning era of the Major Corporate Bookstore. This, in turn, inspired “They Came Together,” where Amy Poehler runs a whimsical “independent” candy shop, and must compete with the cruel practices of the Corporate Candy Titan around the corner.)

It also seems to me that Lubitsch influenced the controversial finale for “Sex and the City,” which has a standard rom-com setup. At the start, Carrie is a sworn enemy of Mr. Big. He visits her at her apartment (which is meant to be uptown, but is really on Perry Street), and Carrie demands never to see him again. (“Haunt this street all you want! I don’t live here anymore!”) In Paris, in her new life, Carrie begins to regret what she has said; her uncertainty is given metaphorical form in the loss of her “priceless” CARRIE necklace. She confesses her real ambivalence to Miranda in a transcontinental phone call. (Rage comes from grief, grief comes from regret/doubt/lost love.) Meanwhile, Mr. Big hatches his plan to reclaim Carrie; the ending is a reversal of the beginning; apparent enemies are now lovers, and we go home satisfied.

My favorite of Lubitsch’s many gifts to the world is not a Lubitsch script; it’s the musical “She Loves Me.” This work--another adaptation of “The Shop Around the Corner”--is considered (everywhere) “a perfect musical.” It’s by the guys who did “Fiddler on the Roof,” and it’s just as smart as “Fiddler,” even if the scope is smaller. It has the good, strong bones of a classic American musical: A vivid setting (a perfume shop), a flawed heroine with grand desires (i.e. a desire for love), a charming subplot (Jane Krakowski flirts with a cad and later discovers her own worth during a run-in at the library), and a tidy resolution (former enemies are united in love).

The things I enjoy most in “She Loves Me” are two of the heroine’s big numbers: “Will He Like Me?” and “Vanilla Ice Cream.” The first is so “relatable”; Amalia is really worried before her first blind date, and must accept that she doesn’t have control over how the guy will behave. (“Will he know that there’s a world of love waiting to warm him? How I’m hoping that his eyes and ears won’t misinform him.”) Amalia: vulnerable, wrestling with herself, steeling herself against social anxiety. Who could fail to be moved? And then, in “Vanilla Ice Cream,” Amalia tries to be one self, while her Actual Self keeps insisting on making its presence known:

Dear Friend-
I am so sorry about last night.
It was a nightmare in every way.
But together you and I will laugh at last night
Someday...

Ice cream! 
He brought me ice cream! 
Vanilla ice cream!
Imagine that!
Ice cream--and for the first time--
We were together without a spat!

As Amalia sings to one man, her thoughts keep creeping back to another man, the man she actually loves (though she believes she hates him). Ice cream stands in for companionship. “Last night” ends one sentence; later, it is shunted to a less important place in a sentence by the promise of “someday.” Amalia’s inner conflict is represented by an ellipsis: She can’t finish her letter to “Dear Friend” because her thoughts about her apparent enemy must assert themselves. Such a warm, smart song, and its point is that we often don’t know ourselves. That’s what makes us exasperating and charming. Who could argue with this observation?

Well, all of this is just to say: Keep an eye out for the Lubitsch book. And consider renting “She Loves Me” (the Benanti version) on Broadway HD. And maybe “Ninotchka” and “Shop Around the Corner” on Amazon. All are worth your time!

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