Has there ever been a relationship dynamic more complicated than The Marriage Circle? It’s not made out of one or two love triangles, it’s actually a whole pentagon between two married couples and one of their friends. This convoluted tangle of relationships makes for a rather surprising comedy. As they interact, not just through silent intertitles, but also through scribbled letters and lip reads, the film transforms the original play into an entertaining romp. Director Ernst Lubitsch expands past the witty dialogue through provocative innuendo, with shots that hint at the heady emotions they shouldn’t feel for each other. But what makes the film surprising is its ending, as it pushed against marital boundaries, long before no-fault divorce. The Marriage Circle might not be as prominent as Lubitsch’s talkies, but it’s the witty silent film that hinted at his future mastery over the comedy of manners.
"For his second American film, from 1923, Ernst Lubitsch turned a drawing-room farce into bittersweet chamber music-which, aptly, plays out in Vienna."
— Richard Brody
An unhappily married couple moves to Vienna, where the wife’s married best friend lives, and soon, sparks fly between the wife and the best friend’s husband.
Happily married Dr. Franz Braun and his wife Charlotte recently moved to Vienna, with Braun starting a medical practice with Dr. Gustav Mueller. The Brauns plan to visit all their friends in the area. This includes Charlotte’s married best friend Mitzi Stock, who gets along a little too well with Dr. Franz, much to the disapproval of Mitzi’s paranoid husband Professor Josef.
Marie Prevost. If any other actress took on this role, perhaps Mitzi wouldn’t be thought of as fondly, but she’s able to balance the line between controversial and empathetic.
Man, the 1920s was quite messy.
Berlin
1 nomination
