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| Lady Windermere's Fan (1925) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 28 2012, 01:53 PM (520 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Sep 28 2012, 01:53 PM Post #1 |
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What a delightful surprise! I just wanted to watch a silent film, not having dipped my toe into THAT pool lately, and found this one, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and based on a play by Oscar Wilde. I wasn't expecting much; a silent film based on Wilde? I was sure it'd be of more historical curiousity than actual entertainment. I was wrong; I laughed a lot during this thing. The Wilde wit has been replaced by visual humor and tricks that make this one of the funniest non-slapstick silent films I ever saw. This is a Warner Bros. film with May McAvoy and Bert Lydell as Lady and Lord Windermere; Irene Rich as Mrs. Erlynne; Ronald Colman as Lord Darlington; and Edward Martindel as Lord Lorton. Got all that? The plot's going to sound melodramatic and soap operaish; it's not. Not exactly. Young, innocent Lady Windermere thinks her mom died many years ago; she doesn't know that her mother was a "fallen woman" who still exists, under the name of Mrs. Erlynne. To hush up the possible scandal, Lord Windermere (who knows about all this) gives his secret mother-in-law money; she wants more, though, and intends to rejoin high society so that she can marry Lord Lorton. Lord Darlington, on the other hand, wants to get into Lady Windermere's pants (did I put that correctly?) and gets his chance when Lady W. is mistakenly led to believe that her husband and the woman she doesn't know is her mother are having an affair. Can mom's maternal instinct kick in long enough to save her daughter from the same fate that befell her mom? Maybe, if she can figure out a way to retrieve the Oriental hand fan that her daughter left in the sitting room of a man not her husband. So, what's funny here? I'm glad you asked that. Lubitsch doesn't try 'n' make the audience laugh by printing intertitles with Wilde's witty dialog; he shows us funny stuff. Mrs. Erlynne goes to the races to try and fit into society, and suddenly every binocular in the place is trained on notorious her. At a party, she's shunned until she picks out the most ridiculously dressed person in the room (lotsa feathers) and compliments her fashion sense, and then the other women gather around her like iron filings around a giant Wham-O magnet. In the garden, the women, the men, and the ornate bushes all interact to give the appearance that a LOT of funny business is going on, when nothing's going on at all. Every time the various Lords and Ladies try to act pompous, the cameraman is able to show us how they're all dwarfed by the giant windows, doors, and walls in their stately manors. As I said, I laughed a lot through this thing. Funny movie. It's on More Treasures from American Archives. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Oct 4 2012, 05:48 AM Post #2 |
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Mouth Breather
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The Marriage Circle and So This Is Paris are funny too. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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11:36 AM Jul 11