Well, at least I learned what ermine is, that's neat. That being said, I was actually somewhat enchanted with That Lady in Ermine, Ernst Lubitsch's final feature film that he was unable to complete due to his untimely death, a task that Otto Preminger, who had completed the earlier project that was supposed to be Lubitsch's A Royal Scandal, finished. I really felt like there was a failure on the part of Preminger on the earlier film where he simply didn't try to make a Lubitsch film, but the tone on That Lady in Ermine is much more consistently Lubitsch's lighter, airier tone that helps make the ridiculous and inconsistently presented fantasy more palatable. I do wonder if Lubitsch was losing his touch in these final years (in no small part due to his increasingly serious health issues that ended with his third and final heart attack during this production) because while this does feel like an effort to return to the easier, frothier work he was making in the thirties, I'm not sure it would have worked as well even if Lubitsch had survived. Maybe it would have been good, but I'm not sure it could have been great like The Smiling Lieutenant.
The Countess Angelina (Betty Grable), ruler of the invented country of Bergamo (not the northern Italian province) marries the Count Mario (Cesar Romero). The next day, Bergamo being a small country on the path of larger countries on their way to other conquests, gets invaded by a Hungarian army led by Colonel Teglash (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). To save his own life, being a military man in a country invaded by a far superior force, Mario goes into hiding in the countryside as a gypsy.
Now, the weird fantasy elements of the film revolve around the painting gallery in the Bergamo palace where, at night sometimes, all of them come alive, leave their frames, and just kind of gather around and talk. The centerpiece of these is the titular lady in ermine, the Countess Francesca (also Grable) who, three hundred years before the events of the film, showed up to the tent of the commander of another army led by The Duke (also Fairbanks) dressed only in a white ermine coat and barefoot (as she is presented in the painting). We get a flashback to these events about a third of the way through the film (I think it would have worked better had it essentially started the film) that ends with Francesca stabbing the Duke in the back, and Francesca decides that she's going to do what she can to help her progeny in her problem.
Teglash, of course, becomes enamored of Angelina who resists him, being dedicated to her husband who sneaks into her room, leaving behind evidence of his visit that Teglash uses to hold Mario in a gilded cage, making the Bergamo count think that his ruse is working while Teglash sees right through it. I'm not entirely sure why Francesca decides to do this, but she invades Teglash's dream as Angelina and they have a magical time together including dancing on tables, a small orchestra that hides itself behind a magical divider when the two kiss, and a flight into the sky. It might make little sense since Francesca seems to exist in three different realms and the rules have no real consistency, but it's nice.
Teglash wakes, discovers that it was all a dream, and he needs to move on from Bergamo to continue his military career. At this point, Angelina is falling just a bit for Teglash, though she continues to be loyal to her husband (earlier Lubitsch would definitely have had the two sleep together). Mario doesn't quite believe that nothing happened, though, especially since he discovers that Teglash had figured out who he was, thinking that Angelina had exchanged a favor for his release. However, it was nothing but affection from Teglash towards Angelina. The film ends with a new couple forming and Francesca being congratulated by the other paintings for all her hard work.
So, it's something of a mess of a film. The fantasy stuff is seriously all over the place. I think the flashback sequence is simply in the wrong part of the film. The ending of the marriage between Angelina and Mario doesn't feel like some sort of reasonable thing, and Angelina running to be with Teglash doesn't have the feeling of happy resolution one might expect from this kind of film. I have little doubt that had Lubitsch survived through the entirety of production, some of this might have gotten ironed out. He never seemed terribly married to the script he was working with, choosing to help find scenes and laughs as they went along filming, but Preminger, dedicated and professional studio hand, just filmed through the whole thing like the professional he was. It wasn't his project. He wasn't excited about it in any way, shape or form. He predicted failure at every level from critical to commercial that all came true. He didn't seem invested in trying to make the most of what Lubitsch had left him, but at least he tried to replicate the overall feel of Lubitsch in this one. And that, I think, is what carries it part of the way. It has the same light, innocent desire to entertain that permeated so much of Lubitsch's work, a feeling that I found completely lacking in A Royal Scandal.
Preminger made no effort to make this his own, trying to act as some kind of simple vessel for the script as written and the tone Lubitsch had started. I do think Lubitsch would have made it a better film, perhaps even getting it to some form of light goodness. However, the project as completed is a mixed bag. The tone is there, but the script is surprisingly confused on a couple of major things.
I do wish Lubitsch had lived for another twenty years and made another fifteen films, but while The Lady in Ermine is not nearly the heights of his best work, it's far from his worst.
The Countess Angelina (Betty Grable), ruler of the invented country of Bergamo (not the northern Italian province) marries the Count Mario (Cesar Romero). The next day, Bergamo being a small country on the path of larger countries on their way to other conquests, gets invaded by a Hungarian army led by Colonel Teglash (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). To save his own life, being a military man in a country invaded by a far superior force, Mario goes into hiding in the countryside as a gypsy.
Now, the weird fantasy elements of the film revolve around the painting gallery in the Bergamo palace where, at night sometimes, all of them come alive, leave their frames, and just kind of gather around and talk. The centerpiece of these is the titular lady in ermine, the Countess Francesca (also Grable) who, three hundred years before the events of the film, showed up to the tent of the commander of another army led by The Duke (also Fairbanks) dressed only in a white ermine coat and barefoot (as she is presented in the painting). We get a flashback to these events about a third of the way through the film (I think it would have worked better had it essentially started the film) that ends with Francesca stabbing the Duke in the back, and Francesca decides that she's going to do what she can to help her progeny in her problem.
Teglash, of course, becomes enamored of Angelina who resists him, being dedicated to her husband who sneaks into her room, leaving behind evidence of his visit that Teglash uses to hold Mario in a gilded cage, making the Bergamo count think that his ruse is working while Teglash sees right through it. I'm not entirely sure why Francesca decides to do this, but she invades Teglash's dream as Angelina and they have a magical time together including dancing on tables, a small orchestra that hides itself behind a magical divider when the two kiss, and a flight into the sky. It might make little sense since Francesca seems to exist in three different realms and the rules have no real consistency, but it's nice.
Teglash wakes, discovers that it was all a dream, and he needs to move on from Bergamo to continue his military career. At this point, Angelina is falling just a bit for Teglash, though she continues to be loyal to her husband (earlier Lubitsch would definitely have had the two sleep together). Mario doesn't quite believe that nothing happened, though, especially since he discovers that Teglash had figured out who he was, thinking that Angelina had exchanged a favor for his release. However, it was nothing but affection from Teglash towards Angelina. The film ends with a new couple forming and Francesca being congratulated by the other paintings for all her hard work.
So, it's something of a mess of a film. The fantasy stuff is seriously all over the place. I think the flashback sequence is simply in the wrong part of the film. The ending of the marriage between Angelina and Mario doesn't feel like some sort of reasonable thing, and Angelina running to be with Teglash doesn't have the feeling of happy resolution one might expect from this kind of film. I have little doubt that had Lubitsch survived through the entirety of production, some of this might have gotten ironed out. He never seemed terribly married to the script he was working with, choosing to help find scenes and laughs as they went along filming, but Preminger, dedicated and professional studio hand, just filmed through the whole thing like the professional he was. It wasn't his project. He wasn't excited about it in any way, shape or form. He predicted failure at every level from critical to commercial that all came true. He didn't seem invested in trying to make the most of what Lubitsch had left him, but at least he tried to replicate the overall feel of Lubitsch in this one. And that, I think, is what carries it part of the way. It has the same light, innocent desire to entertain that permeated so much of Lubitsch's work, a feeling that I found completely lacking in A Royal Scandal.
Preminger made no effort to make this his own, trying to act as some kind of simple vessel for the script as written and the tone Lubitsch had started. I do think Lubitsch would have made it a better film, perhaps even getting it to some form of light goodness. However, the project as completed is a mixed bag. The tone is there, but the script is surprisingly confused on a couple of major things.
I do wish Lubitsch had lived for another twenty years and made another fifteen films, but while The Lady in Ermine is not nearly the heights of his best work, it's far from his worst.