The ‘Lubitsch touch’, as promoted by Paramount at the time, can be described as many things: sophistication, style, wit, elegance, the compression of ideas and situations into brief scenes… but Halliwell also added that the director –

‘…tried to tell his society comedies by picture as well as dialogue; in his hands a doorknob turning or a clock ticking could mean as much as a page of script.  He also liked to use repeated gags and images as a comedy framework, getting a bigger laugh with them each time.’

In his dedication to Lubitsch in the Filmgoer’s Companion, Halliwell commends the director for –

‘…extending the period of elegant comedy which is now part of history.’

The point being that Lubitsch’s huge influence on film-making in general – and the genre of sophisticated light comedies with subtle sexual suggestions in particular – was only a contemporary one, as the style itself has gone out of fashion,  and out of the movies, where subtlety is no longer on the menu.  However, virtually any romantic comedy from that era owes a debt to Lubitsch, so much so that Billy Wilder had a notice pinned to his office wall which read, “What would Lubitsch do?”

Year: 1932