CLUNY BROWN: Blu-ray (2oth Century-Fox, 1946) Criterion

In departing the funeral home on Nov. 30, 1947, two of Hollywood’s most stalwart directors, William Wyler and Billy Wilder contemplated what the future of comedy on film would be without Ernst Lubitsch. Indeed, Lubitsch had been ‘the’ artist by which all other comedy directors could be measured – the barometer brought to bear on his own fancifully created paradise. This, to be sure, was a place not to be found in nature. There - benevolent beauty, with a domesticated hint of the salacious - remade as uber-suave, if doleful intelligence governed. It was a domain left for others to rechristen as Lubitsch-land, and where Lubitsch could indulge his own particular brand of tantalizing self-esteem, lightly peppered in random violations of the socially-ascribed sexual and/or moral protocol, but for which the appropriate response could always be ritualized to smooth over the rough edges. But now, Lubitsch was gone, snuffed out, age 55, by a heart attack; The Lady in Ermine, his current picture, mid-way through production, and later to be completed by Otto Preminger, released in 1948. “No more Lubitsch,” Wilder is reported to have offered, to which Wyler glibly replied, “Worse than that. No more Lubitsch pictures!”

And ostensibly, at least, the Lubitsch movie most recently then to have hit screens, 1946’s Cluny Brown, was not entirely the one for which even Lubitsch might have preferred to be best remembered. For more fondly recollected fodder, however, one could easily turn back the clock on a myriad of Lubitsch treasures already in the can, now, forever destined to be revived; The Love Parade (1929), Monte Carlo (1930), Trouble in Paradise (1932), The Merry Widow (1934), Ninotchka (1939) and The Shop Around the Corner (1940) among them. Yet, as a polite stab at the stuffy social mores and manners of England’s caste system – Cluny Brown is, oft dismissed as ‘featherweight’ Lubitsch; a sort of ‘lesser than’ if not entirely red-headed stepchild, despite featuring some of the most intensely heart-felt philosophizing found in any Lubitsch picture. ‘Squirrels to the nuts’, indeed! The chief hurdle to overcome here is Jennifer Jones, whose comedic timing remains exceptional, but whose ‘English’ accent slips into pure America-ease after the first 15-minutes or so of run time, and never to return, leaving one to contemplate what this Yankee gal might be doing in typical upstairs/downstairs garb, especially when surrounded by a formidable roster of legit Brits – including Peter Lawford, Reginald Owen, Reginald Gardiner, C. Aubrey Smith – and the intercontinental marvel, Charles Boyer. Aside: those with keener ears will be immediately stirred by Richard Haydn’s hilarious and stuffy pharmacist, Mr. Wilson whose voice is – verbatim – the haughty and exclusive Caterpillar from Walt Disney’s 1951 re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland. “Whoooooo, aaaaaare, yoooooou?!?”

Upon further reconsideration, however, Cluny Brown has a lot going for it, not the least, the earthy, yet urbane wit in Samuel Hoffenstein and Elizabeth Reinhardt’s screenplay – with a slight (uncredited) assist from novelist, James Hilton; based on Margery Sharp’s popular novel. And Jennifer Jones and Charles Boyer have superb on-screen chemistry here; she, as the eponymous,  slightly wounded, head-in-the-clouds heroine, who fancies a career as a plumber, but will settle for marriage to Wilson – simply because he represents the stability of a family life she never had, and he, as Adam Belinski, the whimsically philosophizing professor, exiled from his native Czechoslovakia by Hitler’s advancing armies. Early on, Belinski addresses Cluny’s concerns over ‘her place’ in society thus - “In Hyde Park, for instance, some people like to feed nuts to the squirrels. But if it makes you happy to feed squirrels to the nuts, who am I to say, "nuts to the squirrels?” In an era governed by Hollywood’s Code of Censorship, where most film-makers shied away from such light-hearted sexual badinage, Lubitsch instead rushes head-long into his particular brand of lithe amusement for it – his central characters more baffled by the rest of society’s frigidity toward sex. And Boyer, with his mellifluous voice and bon vivant’s attitude toward life, is the perfect éminence grise into Lubitsch’s fairy-land of frothy fun.

Cluny Brown opens on a seemingly benign vignette that will prove anything but; Cluny’s arrival at the apartment of one, Hilary Ames (Reginald Gardiner), flustered by a congested sink, as he is expecting guests to begin arriving at any moment for an afternoon’s soiree, preceded by Belinski’s impromptu visit, expecting to find an old friend, who has since sublet the apartment to Ames. Despite her lack of experience, Cluny is confident she can unstop Ames’ sink, and, as he has no alternative, he very reluctantly allows her a bit of latitude to try. Her success in the job leads to unlikely consequences as Ames, offering an alcoholic beverage in a toast, manages to intoxicate the girl, much to the chagrin of her uncle, - Arn Porritt (Billy Bevan); the real plumber. Believing the worst of Ames and Belinski’s intentions toward the girl, Porritt arranges for her to get a ‘respectable job’ as a housemaid in the great country house of Sir Henry Carmel (Reginald Owen) and his wife, Lady Alice (Margaret Bannerman). A case of mistaken identity ensues when Cluny makes a friend of Col. Charles Duff Graham (C. Aubrey Smith) on the train ride over, and he, having misunderstood the purpose for her arrival, assumes she is a guest of the Carmels, drops her off at the manor, where she is immediately welcomed as a ‘friend’ of the Colonel, and, given tea and crumpets.   

Before any of this, however, Ames’ party guests arrive at his apartment. Palming an English note from Ames and an invite to the gathering, Belinski – an elegant sponge – makes himself comfortable in Ames’ upstairs bedroom. As fate would have it, two of the guests, Andrew Carmel (Peter Lawford) and his fiancée, the honorable – but rather cold as a fish and equally as conniving – Betty Cream (Helen Walker) enter to have their lover’s tiff. Recognizing Belinski at a glance, Andrew – a socialist with great intellectual ambitions to stand up to Hitler – by writing an editorial in The Times! – and, admiring Belinski greatly – now offers him all the comforts of his family’s country estate. Naturally, Belinski agrees to this indefinite stay in the lap of luxury, hurrying off to indulge in the Carmel’s hospitality. The house is overseen by a stoic housekeeper, Mrs. Maile (Sara Allgood) and the as puffed-up, Syrette (Ernest Cossart) the family’s Majordomo. At dinner, Cluny makes two faux pas; the first, discouraging her employer from choosing from the mutton she is serving – recommending a piece herself, and then, startled by Belinski’s presence, dropping the entire tray on the floor before scurrying off in rank embarrassment. To smooth over this spectacle, Belinski encourages the Carmels to reconsider Cluny’s charm and inexperience; the latter, certainly to improve with time and practice. Reluctantly, Sir Henry agrees not to dismiss the girl outright. However, below stairs, both Maile and Syrette believe Cluny’s days as a maid are numbered.

Meanwhile, having taken a shine to Cluny, Belinski makes gallant attempts to romantically woo her. Instead, he finds the girl has no such ideas of love or romance toward him. Biding his time, Belinski proposes a truce in friendship which the naïve Cluny wholeheartedly accepts at face value. Sometime later, she reveals to Belinski she has begun to harbor affections for the local apothecary, Mr. Wilson, whose crude mother (Una O’Connor) and extended family are a dull as paint. Wilson serenades Cluny on his piano. Unknowing of family life – as her own parents both died when she was very young, Cluny believes this is the best she can do and embraces the Wilson clan for her own, expecting Mr. Wilson will soon propose marriage. Belinksi is quite unimpressed by Wilson, however, and takes several opportunities to upset the order of his perfect world – setting off the doorbell to his shop repeatedly, simply to create a distraction, and later, on the open road, implying he is Cluny’s guardian, while suggesting sternly that Wilson had better be on his best behavior where the girl is concerned – or else. Meanwhile, the awkward affair between Betty Cream and Andrew has once again stalled. Indeed, Andrew is a fairly stuffed shirt, too full of high ideals to wholeheartedly invest in an earthy love affair. Having accepted Lady Alice’s invitation for the weekend, Betty sets about to convince Andrew to see things her way.

To encourage Betty’s plan – though unbeknownst to her – Belinski dresses in Andrew’s evening housecoat and enters her room while she is in bed reading a book. Belinski pretends to make a veiled overture, testing Betty’s fidelity. She calmly resists his advances with a glacial cool resolve, offering controlled screams until the rest of the household is stirred to investigate. Indeed, the family rushes to her aid, whereupon Belinski fabricates a story about wanting to borrow several books from the bureau to read in his own room. Andrew is unimpressed by this tall tale and later challenges Belinski to an impromptu boxing match. Meanwhile, Cluny has gradually come to realize Mr. Wilson is not for her. Not wanting to remain a housemaid, she contemplates her future. Belinski resurfaces with his own grand plan. As he too is penniless, and unable to support a wife, he will instead turn his career as a writer to penning murder mysteries, surely to net him great rewards in the short term – enough to sustain their lives together. The movie ends in pantomime; Cluny and Belinski, now as man and wife, passing a book-seller’s window filled with copies of his best seller. Their impromptu kiss attracts a constable and crowd of onlookers. We cut to another shop window, revealing a sequel to Belinski’s novel, and realize he has written again because his wife is expecting their first child.

Cluny Brown is an erudite comedy that pokes many holes in English propriety with tongue firmly in cheek. The ‘Lubitsch touch’ – oft described as a ‘halo’ effect that teases the audience with the mere inference of being naughty – the rest of its pleasure derived purely in each audience member’s dirty imagination, is on full display here; Lubitsch, illustrating it with Cluny’s loaded lines of dialogue – her Freudian passion for releasing ‘the pressure’ in a stopped-up sink or turned into a purring kitten when plied with strong drink – precisely the sort of badinage, seemingly invisibly transmitted from Lubitsch’s playful deviance to the audience.  “One good bang might turn the trick in a jiffy,” Cluny explains to Ames, “Shall we have a go at it?” Later, Cluny reminisces with Belinski about the moment when she victoriously unplugged Ames’ drain, “What I wouldn’t give to have it again, sleeves up, stockings down – bang, bang, bang!” as a thoroughly startled, and semi-disgusted Syrette and Mrs. Maile look on. ‘Bang-bang-bang’, indeed! Cluny Brown may not be the most fondly recalled Lubitsch masterpiece, but this is far more the result of its inexplicable absence from the public spotlight than any artistic deficit in the picture itself. Indeed, for decades after its initial release, Cluny Brown remained MIA – never revived in theatrical reissues, and, even more ironically, completely overlooked for a home video release…until now.

Cluny Brown arrives on Blu-ray via Criterion’s association with Fox Home Video in a sparkling new 4K restoration derived from surviving elements. Aside, I shudder to think what the future of Fox movies still MIA on Blu-ray holds, as Disney Inc. is now in charge of the studio’s back catalog; the Mouse House, quite unable to do justice, even to their own live-action catalog, much less one they have suddenly inherited. But I digress. Owing to decades of improper preservation, Cluny Brown sports a mostly pleasing, but rather inconsistent image. The biggest curiosity here is film grain. It appears to have been digitally scrubbed. At times, the B&W elements sport a razor-sharp crispness, while at other intervals there is a step down in overall image clarity and refinement, with marginally boosted contrast. Consider the sequence where Cluny and Mr. Wilson meet Belinski on the open road. While the sequence has been cobbled together from rear-projection, indoor sets, and, actually on-location outdoor footage, the overall tonality and contrast is all over the place – not merely, between these disparate elements, but actually within the elements themselves. A close-up done with rear projection or under controlled lighting conditions on a set can appear quite polished, while another shot similarly derived only moments later looks completely different in terms of exaggerated contrast and grain levels. Likely, this 1080p rendering of Cluny Brown was achieved by re-assembling the picture from the best possible surviving dupes and print masters. The quality is certainly better than average, with narrowly a hint of any age-related blemish. The PCM mono audio is adequate. Extras include a brief conversation between feminist film critic, Molly Haskell and Farran Smith Nehme; also, a new video essay by Kristin Thompson and an interview from 2004 with scholar, Bernard Eisenschitz. We also get a radio adaptation from 1950 with Dorothy McGuire filling in for Jones, and finally, a printed essay by Siri Hustvedt. Bottom line: Cluny Brown in an interesting ‘little’ film from Ernst Lubitsch. Its reputation as a lost gem is warranted, though arguably, it remains a second-tier effort when compared to many other movies in Lubitsch’s brief, but exceptionally productive film career. This Blu-ray, while solid, is not without its anomalies. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4

EXTRAS

3