SUBJECTS

Marriage -- Drama, Princesses -- Drama, Triangles (Interpersonal relations) -- Drama

The Smiling Lieutenant

Ernst Lubitsch
United States, 1931

Restored Print

featuring

Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Miriam Hopkins, Charlie Ruggles,

Ernst Lubitsch’s satire permeates this musical from the most minute of background noises to the plot itself: a story of romance vs. royalty, with Maurice Chevalier caught smiling in the middle; Claudette Colbert on the side of the people and love, as a performer in a Viennese beer garden; and Miriam Hopkins as the infinitely less desirable but unavoidable Princess Anna of Flausenthurm. The plot makes its final twist on a purely cosmetic point, and this is the beauty of Lubitsch.

Judy Bloch
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Ernest Vajda
  • Samson Raphaelson
Based On

  • The operetta Ein Walzertraum by Felix Dörmann, Leopold Jacobson, and the novel Nux der Prinzgemahl by Hans Müller

Cinematographer
  • George Folsey
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 35mm
  • 88 mins
Source
  • UCLA Film & Television Archive
Permission
  • NBC Universal
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View The Smiling Lieutenant documents  

Laughter in paradise: the films of Ernst Lubitsch (program note), Cinematheque Ontario/a division of Toronto International Film Festival Group, Scott Eyman, 2000

Revivals in focus (review), Village Voice, Tom Allen, 1987

The Lubitsch touch (program note)

Displaying 3 of 3 publicly available documents.


View all The Smiling Lieutenant documentation on CineFiles.