The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-09-08
Paul Harrison in Hollywood The Trouble With LubitSch Is That
 He'll Talk of Anything But Movies
lie Has Made MarIene Act Instead of Lying on
 Chaise-L LOngue
BY PAUL HARRISON (NEA Service Stan Correspondent)

(NEA Service Stan COFrespondent)
 Hollywood One trouble about be- ing 0 Hollywood correspondent Is that you have to go around prod ding everybody into talking about the movies Usually this is by no means c difficult task, but some- times you encounter Q person who is good and tired of the subject and would prefer discussing whether Fascism will gobble Spain or wheth- c salmon trout will gobble grass hoppers. Or what.
 I would not care to suggest that Ernest Lubitsch is tired of thinking about movies because he recently finished directing Marlene Dietrich in "Angel," but I do know that he has been through e pretty trying time and is locally regarded with great admiration for his skill and patience in finally getting Miss Diet rich to do things the way he wanted them done. 5.
 The screen colony believes that
 this picture will do . lot for Miss
 Dietrich because her Job in lt Is
 acting and not Just lying on
 chalse- lounge and batting her
 eyelashcs.
 At the beginning of production Lubitsch told her very firmly that there'd be no glamour Just for glamour's sake; that she was sup- posed to look like e human being and would have to act like one.
 
 Mixes Frankfurters, Cigars
 But the director didn't talk about the star when I saw him ct lunch. From the tomato juice to the ice he chatted of la weekend in the mountains, 2-newspapers, B. the surprising inefficiency of aerial bombardment in current foreign hostilities, 4--magazines, particu- larly the new magazine, "Jones," edited, published and mostly written by his friend, the screen writer, Grover Jones.
 While talking and eating, he also smoked two big cigars. He had or- dered frankfurters and red cabbage, and 1t seemed almost inevitable that he would eat c cigar and try to light a frankfurter. Didn't though, and probably wouldn't have known the difference anyway. Lubitsch smokes from IS to 20 cigars 6 day and is conditioned to them by heredity. Ills father almost died of nicotine poiooning.
 His Next VIII Be Comedy
 By prodding MT. Lubitsch I final ly got few cinematic statements out of him: He believes that "Angel" is . good picture even If he did maze 1t. He welcomes his next di- rectorial assignment as change of pace because 1t is 0 comedy, "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife" co-star- ring Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert.
 Tie has helped write the scripts of every picture on which he ever worked, even back in the days when his foreign films carried Pola Negri and Emil Jannings to stardom. He likes pictures with social signifi- canoe, but not preachy ones.
 5ghe public, said Lubitsch, thank. fully, "dOes not now want always to laugh and have only happy endlngs." He would like to direct an intlmate.reVue type of musl- cal, but fears the fans are getting pretty sick of tap.and. tune shows.
 That's about all he had to say. LubitSch Is so modest that he would rather laugh about some of his worst pictures than tell you of his triumphs. And he squirms when you mention the directorial quality which Hollywood calls "the Lubitsch touch" Says he doesn't know what it is. He's Generally Right
 Grover Jones has on Idea, though. He wrote in his magazine "Lu- bitsch likes to tell biz things through little minds. The butler peeking through 6 palace keyhoie turns and tells the cook that the king has just declared war on the rest of tho world. Then In true Lubitschian style, he'll probably add: And that means he won't Do homo for dinner,
 "The Little!Man- With. .the- Biz. Cigar Is the best script writer In the business, barring nobody. When in doubt about tho flow of spoken lines, he sits at the plano and im- proviseS. When 1t sounds like this he says, running his fingers over the Keys, It'll be just what I want. |