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2. Champagne and Tears: Ninotchka, Midnight, and Ball of Fire
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Champagne and tears ninotchka, midnight, and Ball of Fire In a film, marriage is a beautiful mistake that two people make together. —Ernst Lubitsch When he was preparing Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife for filming, Ernst Lubitsch wanted Charles Brackett to write the screenplay. He did not ask the studio for Billy Wilder as well because he did not want to give the impression that he was a German-born director who favored hiring members of the German immigrant colony in Hollywood. But Manny Wolf told Lubitsch that Brackett and Wilder were a team, so Wilder was part of the deal. Lubitsch, a stout, cigar-chomping little man with a thick German accent, had a genius for making Hollywood pictures, like Trouble in Paradise (1932), marked by sophisticated Continental humor. In his first meeting with Brackett and Wilder, he posed a thought-provoking question. In romantic comedies, he explained, the hero and the heroine should not meet in an ordinary way. They should “meet-cute,” as the saying goes; that is, they should meet in an unexpected manner that will get the audience interested in them. Lubitsch accordingly asked his writers, “How do the boy and girl get together?” Wilder, who kept a notebook of clever ideas for use in screenplays, volunteered this proposal: Wealthy Michael Brandon (the character eventually played by Gary Cooper) is trying to buy pajamas in a men’s store on the French Riviera where he is vacationing, but he sleeps only in the pants. He is thrifty, as millionaires go, so he insists on purchasing only the pants. The clerk says he must buy the tops as well. Nicole de Loiselle (who would be played by Claudette Colbert) comes into the store and asks to buy the tops only, because she sleeps only in the tops. So Michael and Nicole divide a pair Some LIke It WILder 0 of pajamas. Lubitsch was enthusiastic about Wilder’s suggestion, which was the ultimate meet-cute scene. Wilder continued the habit of scribbling ideas into a pocket notebook throughout his career. “I have always been an inveterate note-taker, because you never know when the muse will touch your brow.” These bright ideas, he concluded, could come in handy on the days “when the muse goes out to have her hair done.” collaborating with ernst lubitsch: Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938) and Ninotchka (1939) Lubitsch was just finishing another picture. So he told his writing team to go ahead and work out the narrative structure of the entire scenario, and he would have story conferences with them from time to time. The French farce by Alfred Savoir that they were adapting provided the skeleton of the scenario, including certain tentpole scenes that they had to work into the script for Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife. Lubitsch was a perfectionist who insisted on polishing a screenplay until it was as good as possible. “Preparation is everything,” he wrote; it was vital that every scene in the script “be detailed down to the last raising of an eyelid .”1 He never allowed actors to improvise on the set—an attitude that Wilder picked up from his mentor when he became a director. Wilder clearly found in Lubitsch a kindred spirit. During script sessions, Lubitsch would act out each role as he tested the writers’ dialogue. He would periodically prod Brackett and Wilder with queries like “Is this the best we can do?” Wilder declared, “If the truth be known, Lubitsch was the best writer who ever lived.” Most of the “bright ideas” came from him. In the script, when the American Michael is looking for a clothing store in France, he notices a sign in a store window: “English is spoken here.” Lubitsch penciled into the screenplay at this point the following addition to the sign: “American understood.”2 Michael is a millionaire who has married and divorced seven women; he paid each of them a generous settlement when he got bored with her. After marrying him, Nicole learns that she is the eighth Mrs. Brandon and nicknames him “Bluebeard.” She decides to divorce him for a huge amount of alimony. But after many twists and turns, Nicole realizes that she really loves Michael, and she decides to remain Bluebeard’s eighth—and final—wife. Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife began principal photography on October 11, 1937. Lubitsch allowed Wilder to observe him at work on the set whenever he got the chance. “His technique was totally subordinated to storytelling,” [3.238.62...