Ernst Lubitsch

The intricate history of UFA, a film production company founded in 1917 that has survived the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime, the Adenauer era and the many and tumultuous events of contemporary Germany, and has always been the epicenter of the German film industry.

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Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1919, when the Republic of Weimar is born, to 1933, when the Nazis come into power. (Followed by Hitler's Hollywood, 2017.)

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A documentary about the life and career of film director Ernst Lubitsch

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A keen chronicle of the unlikely rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and a dissection of the Third Reich (1933-1945), but also an analysis of mass psychology and how the desperate crowd can be deceived and shepherded to the slaughterhouse.

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A Nazi propaganda film made to promote anti-Semitism among the German people. Newly-shot footage of Jewish neighborhoods in recently-conquered Poland is combined with preexisting film clips and stills to defame the religion and advance Hitler's slurs that its adherents were plotting to undermine European civilization.

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A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.

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Ed Sullivan shows night spots all over New York in this movie, joking and listening to stories the patrons tell.

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A 1927 silent-era series of Hollywood studio tours, these short subjects go behind the scenes at major studios and showcase famous stars, directors, and landmarks of the movie capital.

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The favorite slave girl of a tyrannical sheik falls in love with a cloth merchant. Meanwhile, a hunchback clown suffers unrequited love for a traveling dancer who wants to join the harem.

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The misadventures of an effete young man who must get married in order to inherit a fortune. He opts to purchase a remarkably lifelike doll and marry it instead, not realizing that the doll is actually the dollmaker’s flesh-and-blood daughter in disguise.

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The burlesque is about a man who calls himself Käsekönig Holländer and rises to become cheese emperor in the course of the film. A lost film.

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Sally Meyer, a young Berliner, persuades his Doctor to convince his wife that he is ill, so that he is able to take a holiday in the Austrian Alps.

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In The the film, Ernst Lubitsch plays Sally, the clever assistant to the detective Ceeps, who only succeeds in solving the Rosentopf case after some effort in the police farce. Partly lost.

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A young woman is forced by her father to marry a man she doesn't love and flees before the marriage takes place. In a small village she falls in love with a young man, but her father disapproves of the match.

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Prince Sami comes from Nigeria and is an uncivilized "nature boy." He is sent to the highly civilized court of Duchess Maria of Arragon, where he initially causes chaos. In the end, however, he becomes the duchess's husband.

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Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Lubitsch plays a book shop employee who falls in love with Jannings' daughter.

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Sally Katz begins a new job as a supervisor in the workshop of a garment maker where the boss's nasty daughter makes him advances. But the girl's father forbids him to flirt back.

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A stylized fairy tale in which a farmer sells his soul to Satan in exchange for prosperity.

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Sally comes from a small town to Berlin, where he begins an apprenticeship with his uncle. He helps his uncle with the bread production and dreams of becoming a famous tenor. One day he is discovered. A group of wealthy gentlemen form a limited company and finance Sally's singing lessons. The day comes when Sally is finally allowed to sing Lohengrin in the opera. His success is prevented by his greatest rival and envy, who sprinkles itching powder on his costume shortly before the performance. Sally returns to his uncle's company, where he finds solace with his cousin.

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Ernst is on the prowl and therefore seeks advice from a matchmaker. As he likes the athlete Anna Muskel, but she only wants a man with a so-called "forend nose", he has an operation. The new nose is still a little sore and not healed, so he hurries to Anna. She is delighted with his new prong and gives Ernst a firm hug. This doesn't do the still "soft" nose any good and it is flattened. Ernst flees and tries to save what can be saved. Then Ernst wakes up in horror: it was only a dream.

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On the occasion of her birthday, a young woman sends out invitations to her many admirers: she wants to marry the one of them who gives her the best present. While the numerous suitors appear, Ernst Lubitsch's character is almost too late: having lost a button on his shirt, he has to roller-skate to his beloved in order to arrive on time. The effort is worth it, as he gives her the best present of all: a quarter of a pound of butter. Lost.

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The main character is appointed conductor of a mixed women's choir. However, it soon becomes apparent that the singers are no longer interested in singing but rather in their new conductor. Only with difficulty and cunning does the conductor manage to keep the women at a distance. However, the conductor can soon breathe a sigh of relief as his great love Lieschen succeeds in alerting the jealous husbands of the women in love. In the end, Lieschen and the conductor get married. A lost film.

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Sally Pinkus is an German-Jewish boy who takes a job as a shoe store clerk after being expelled from school for goofing around. Soon fired for trying to court the owner's daughter, Pinkus lands another job in a more 'upmarket' shoe salon, only to be fired again, before charming a rich benefactress to fund his ultimate dream: Pinkus' Shoe Palace.

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Because Ernst feels oppressed by his wife and her mother, he fakes his suicide and hires in his own household disguised as a servant.

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A skinny couch potato buys a tonic that gives him unexpected strength. Thanks to his new strength, he breaks open the floor of his room, falls to the ground and lands in Africa. He later gets rid of his unloved mother-in-law and ends up with his wife in a fireplace that was destroyed by his fall. Lost.

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This time, Lubitsch plays a tailor's assistant who exploits his striking resemblance to a customer to appear as a gentleman for once. To do so, he needs the eponymous fine suit - the one that the customer, a bruised lover, has given him to iron. The slapstick finale is a big race. Lost.

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Based on the 1856 Gustav Räder play Robert and Bertram about the adventures of two wandering vagrants, which has been turned into films on several occasions.

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Dr. Schneider paces restlessly around his practice - hardly any patients come in. He is delighted when the letter carrier finally rings, but he is in perfect health. Then his cook appears with a tiny cut. Instead of a plaster, Schneider applies an oversized bandage and prescribes strict bed rest. Dissatisfied, he goes hunting for sick people on the street and even treats a passer-by until he flees, exasperated. In the end, only his cook is fit and lively at the stove again. A lost film.

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With the outbreak of World War I, all the men, including the barbers , are drafted. As a result, the women have to take over their work, and so mother and daughter share the work in a barber's shop: the daughter soaps the customers, while the mother then more or less skilfully shaves the men. A customer named Ernst also wants to be shaved. He makes eyes at the daughter and is resolutely thrown out of the shop by his mother. Ernst flees with his great love in the car and is followed by his mother on foot and finally on a tricycle.

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Miss Lo leaves finishing school and returns to her parents’ hotel “Zum Weißen Schwan”. One of the chambermaids eloped with the bellboy and now the daughter has to help out – sometimes as a maid, sometimes in the guise of a bellboy. When she falls in love with Lieutenant Clairon, her male disguise begins to stand in her way. At a ball she has to to look on helplessly while he’s flirting with other women. But with the help of her friend Röschen, who’s the cousin of Clairon, a happy ending is attained.

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The mother wants to prevent her daughter from marrying a man she doesn't like at all costs, even becoming engaged to her daughter's boyfriend. However, she is outwitted by the couple, who eventually get together.

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A resourceful landlady rents the same room to two men: the commercial clerk Zimt, who is at work during the day, and the conductor of a café orchestra Zucker, who has to work all night. After all kinds of turbulence, the trick comes to light and the two bitter enemies Zucker and Zimt eventually become good friends.

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The two best buddies Ernst and Albert are pursuing the same girl. The girl leads them onto the ice in the form of an ice rink, where the two act awkwardly as non-skaters. But even on the ice rink, neither of them wants to give in, and the fight for the girl becomes increasingly intense. Suddenly, the girl's enraged groom appears and puts an abrupt and powerful end to the duel. This decision, imposed by a third party, leads to the two fighting cocks Ernst and Albert reconciling. Lost.

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A bad Polish actor is just trying to make a living when Poland is invaded by the Germans in World War II. His wife has the habit of entertaining young Polish officers while he's on stage, which is also a source of depression to him. When one of her officers comes back on a Secret Mission, the actor takes charge and comes up with a plan for them to escape.

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Circa 1861, Angelina, ruling countess of an Italian principality, is at a loss when invaded by a Hungarian army. Her lookalike ancestress Francesca, who saved a similar situation 300 years before, comes to life from a portrait to help her descendant. Complicating factor: the newlywed countess feels strangely drawn to the handsome invader...

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Amateur plumber Cluny Brown gets sent off by her uncle to work as a servant at an English country estate.

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A simple Connecticut farm girl is recruited by a distant relative, an aristocratic patroon, to be governess to his young daughter in his Hudson Valley mansion.

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Catherine the Great falls in love with an army officer who is plotting against her.

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Spoiled playboy Henry van Cleve dies and arrives at the entrance to Hell, a final destination he is sure he deserves after living a life of profligacy. The devil, however, isn't so sure Henry meets Hell's standards. Convinced he is where he belongs, Henry recounts his life's deeds, both good and bad, including an act of indiscretion during his 25-year marriage to his wife, Martha, with the hope that "His Excellency" will arrive at the proper judgment.

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During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.

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A happily married woman sees a psychoanalyst and develops doubts about her husband.

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Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realising that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.

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A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.

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American multi-millionaire Michael Brandon marries his eighth wife, Nicole, the daughter of a broke French Marquis. But she doesn't want to be only a number in the line of his ex-wives and undertakes her own strategy to tame him.

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While vacationing without her busy British diplomat husband, a married woman falls for another man.

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Madeleine steals a string of pearls in Paris and uses American engineer Tom, who is driving on his vacation to Spain, to get the pearls out of France. But getting the pearls back from him proves to be difficult without falling in love.

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A prince from a small kingdom courts a wealthy widow to keep her money in the country.

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Independent Gilda is resigned fo a life of married tedium when Tom and George, having gotten past their jealousy, come to America and whisk Gilda away to live an exciting polyamorous life in Paris.

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When clerk Phineas V. Lambert receives his check in the mail, he shows little emotion. (Originally appeared as a segment of the film "If I Had a Million", but was later presented separately as a short film.)

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An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.

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Thief Gaston Monescu and pickpocket Lily are partners in crime and love. Working for perfume company executive Mariette Colet, the two crooks decide to combine their criminal talents to rob their employer. Under the alias of Monsieur Laval, Gaston uses his position as Mariette's personal secretary to become closer to her. However, he takes things too far when he actually falls in love with Mariette, and has to choose between her and Lily.

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Andre and Colette Bertier are happily married. When Colette introduces her husband to her flirtatious best friend, Mitzi, he does his best to resist her advances. But she is persistent, and very cute, and he succumbs. Mitzi's husband wants to divorce her, and has been having her tailed. Andre gets caught, and must confess to his wife. But Colette has had problems resisting the attentions of another man herself, and they forgive each other.

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A young French soldier in World War I is overcome with guilt when he kills a German soldier who, like himself, is a musically gifted conscript, each having attended the same musical conservatory in France. The fact that the incident occurred in war does not assuage his guilt. He travels to Germany to meet the man's family.

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An amorous lieutenant is forced to marry a socially awkward princess, though he tries to keep his violin-playing girlfriend on the side.

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A countess fleeing her husband mistakes a count for her hairdresser at a Monte Carlo casino.

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The queen of mythical Sylvania marries a courtier, who finds his new life unsatisfying.

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In 18th-Century Russia, the Czar, Paul, is surrounded by murderous plots and trusts only Count Pahlen. Pahlen wishes to protect his friend, the mad king, but because of the horror of the king's acts, he feels that he must remove him from the throne.

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A young prince falls in love with a beautiful barmaid while at university in old Heidelberg.

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A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.

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A frivolous middle aged socialite is suddenly put upon to have her daughter live with her. Her conniving paramour dumps her for the daughter, leaving the young boyfriend crushed.

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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.

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A charismatic lieutenant newly assigned to a remote fort is captured by a group of mountain bandits, thus setting in motion a madcap farce that is Lubitsch at his most unrestrained. A wonderfully anarchic and playfully subversive satire of military life from one of the great comedy filmmakers.

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The favorite slave girl of a tyrannical sheik falls in love with a cloth merchant. Meanwhile, a hunchback clown suffers unrequited love for a traveling dancer who wants to join the harem.

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The story of Romeo and Juliet, a tale as old as time-- Here, played as farcical lark: A goofy comedy of manners set in a snowy Bavarian village.

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Somewhere in Southern Bavaria Xaver wants to marry Gretel, but her father Kohlhiesel wants his elder daughter Liesel to marry first. The problem is, nobody wants to marry her, because she is too brutal. Seppel suggests, that he should marry Liesel first, get rid of her and then he can marry Gretel...

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The plot of the lost film is divided into two acts. Ossi Oswalda and Victor Janson play two apartment seekers, while Marga Köhler is a landlady. The housing shortage is treated in sketch form and "in a joking manner [...] the real housing calamity", whereby "humorous aspects" are wrested from the "tragedy." Lubitsch and Kräly used a sketch in the film that they had written especially for Ossi Oswalda.

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The misadventures of an effete young man who must get married in order to inherit a fortune. He opts to purchase a remarkably lifelike doll and marry it instead, not realizing that the doll is actually the dollmaker’s flesh-and-blood daughter in disguise.

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A pampered American oyster tycoon decides to buy a husband for his daughter, but things don’t go quite as planned. Along the way there are mishaps, misunderstandings and a foxtrot sequence that must be seen to be believed.

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The burlesque is about a man who calls himself Käsekönig Holländer and rises to become cheese emperor in the course of the film. A lost film.

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