When it comes to directors that set the foundation for the film industry, few have been more influential than Ernst Lubitsch, a filmmaker that established the gold standard for many genres, most notably that of the romantic comedy. Not too many artists have entire motifs named after them, and when the likes of Billy Wilder attribute his entire career to the proverbial “Lubitsch Touch”, you can immediately tell that he is a source of widespread inspiration. His career may have ended before the 1950s, when many of the works established by his unique storytelling approach were made (thus robbing him of the opportunity to see how his proteges and disciples managed to implement his principles in a way that would continue his legacy for many decades), but in the span of time in which he worked, he produced a staggering number of wonderful films. Cluny Brown (the final film Lubitsch made during his lifetime, with the more ill-fated That Lady in Ermine being a posthumous release, having been completed by an uncredited Otto Preminger)is one that is often neglected, for reasons that are not too difficult to understand – it certainly does feel like it has a few too many sporadic ideas cobbled together, and it doesn’t have that same effervescent spark that made his other work so remarkable – but this doesn’t necessarily mean it is a bad film in any way, with many of its merits being strong enough to propel the film forward and make it a very entertaining work that knows its value, and is willing to take a few risks in order to make the story work. There are many merits to the film, and it is as entertaining as we could expect from something crafted by a true genius – but it also lives in a slightly lower tier than his unimpeachable classics, leading to an experience that is enjoyable, but far from the level that we’d normally expect from someone whose work is seen as entirely definitive of an entire era.

In a career as extensive as this one, it isn’t surprising that Cluny Brown isn’t the resounding success it might have been. Lubitsch was relying on a few disparate ideas, rather than a single cohesive concept – and the premise of a young woman being forced into the servitude high society after being deemed too fragile for a working-class life does have a lot of promise, and many may argue that the director should have left it there. However, there are many more ideas layered onto this already promising concept – themes of war interweave with the effervescent romantic storyline (since it is set in Europe around the start of the Second World War, but is never focused directly on the conflict, instead restricting it to a few important but secondary references that exist to buttress the main themes, rather than guide them), as do conversations around the high society and their various daily routines, which are viewed here through the eyes of a pair of outsiders, one a timid housemaid, the other an effortlessly charming author and academic. The main focus of the film is not only about how these two navigate a world they have inadvertently been pushed into, but how they manage to find romance amid these peculiar ramblings, seemingly the only two level-headed individuals in the whole social landscape. Lubitsch was never one to be inherently against the process of exploring many themes, but in Cluny Brown, it sometimes feels a bit more jagged than usual, especially in how they don’t mesh together quite as well as they had in the past. Not the first time the director had explored these themes (especially that of class difference, which was the foundation of many of his great comedies), it does feel like the one that was really composed out of the scraps of the better projects, a film that recycles a few ideas, while reconfiguring the off-cuts that were maybe missing from earlier ones. It doesn’t necessarily invalidate Cluny Brown as a great work on its own, but there comes a point where it seems like it is peddling in diminishing returns, which isn’t ideal, considering what we have come to expect from the director, who is almost exclusively a paragon of quality.

One of the primary flaws of Cluny Brown (if you can refer to them as flaws – perhaps peculiarities is a more appropriate term) is that it doesn’t seem to have a very consistent idea as to who the focus is. Logically, we’d assume Jennifer Jones would occupy this position, as the film is named after her, and it is her journey that we follow. Yet, we see most of the film through the eyes of the character of Adam Belinski, played by the effortlessly charming Charles Boyer – and it seems like this wasn’t the intention, but rather an accidental occurrence, as a result of the very different acting styles of the two leads. While Jones was clearly placed in a position of being the focus, she is not a strong enough performer to handle the character, especially not one that needed to align with the long culture of Lubitsch heroines that are feisty, steadfast and fiercely independent. Jones isn’t a bad actress, but she often struggled with playing characters that were as strong-willed as Cluny Brown, her more flighty and ethereal persona not making much sense in the context of a character who is supposed to embody the working-class grit of a plumber’s niece. Boyer, on the other hand, flourishes in the part of the charismatic intellectual, a man who is capable of capturing an audience’s attention every moment he is on screen. He can easily handle Lubitsch’s writing and style (especially since they had collaborated before), so it only seems inevitable that he would have become the part of the film we remember the most, since the role was clearly designed towards his sensibilities. The chemistry between the two leads is lovely but tenuous, and we often find ourselves a bit conflicted about whether we can convincingly believe that these two would fight against the detractors to pursue their love. It makes for a slightly more uneven film, with a lot of our effort as viewers being expended on forcing our gaze away from Boyer, who somehow manages to be the primary focus in a film where he is supposed to be in the periphery, at least in comparison to the titular character.

It is important to look at Cluny Brown as a product of its time, which does allow us to understand some of its context. Filmed only a few months after the end of the Second World War (but set in its earlier days), the film does actively attempt to remark on a few very deep themes surrounding the wartime mentality – and to his credit, Lubitsch has never been one to mince his words, and rather than referring to the Nazi Party and its deplorable leader as “a menace” or “that rascal in Germany”, it directly and unabashedly calls him by name, and makes its disdain for the entire agenda very clear, which takes on an even deeper meaning when we consider how this is coming from a German-born director, who was likely watching his native country spiral out of control, and still managing to find the strength to construct comedies that would often look at these issues, or at least allude to them in a way that suggests something much deeper. As a social satire, Cluny Brown has many intriguing ideas – it only needed to expand on them to fully become as strong a commentary as it seemed to want to be. We don’t often find works that aspire to be both romantic and satirical (or rather, we don’t come across instances where they’re equally successful in both, instead the oscillation between the two being the primary method of telling this story), but this film does come very close, often feeling like it is encompassing the best of them – it just struggles to put them together in a way that feels like they’re sampling off one another. The film needed a more concise approach in order to play off each of the two themes as effectively as it perhaps should have been, as well as further restraint in how it developed the secondary storylines, many of which begin to fade away when it becomes clear that they’re not going to factor into the conclusion of the film. This obviously doesn’t mean that the film is bad in any way, but rather that it had interesting ideas that fell apart in the execution, or rather just didn’t come together quite as well as one would’ve hoped.

If there is something that resonates as exceptionally true throughout Cluny Brown, it is that even when he is playing in a minor key, Lubitsch was a master. His writing was witty and filled with dialogue that runs the gamut from discussing the nature of love to the mechanics of war, all executed through the most intricate and delightfully upbeat humour of the period. No one could make a comedy like Lubitsch, so it only seems that even at a slightly more subdued pace, he has made something worth seeing. It may not have the most consistently brilliant performances (the titular character yearned for an actress more adept at the salt-of-the-earth sensibilities, and one that would complement Boyer, rather than elevate him to the most memorable part of the film), or even the most uniformly consistent approach to its story, but it is still a great deal of fun, and the sparkling comedy only makes it all the more enjoyable. When confronted with the opportunity to be dour, the director always chooses to find the humour – and considering many post-war films tended towards being a lot more downbeat, this is a remarkable change of pace that reaffirms the almost undeniable fact that he was one of our greatest filmmakers. Our attention is always firmly planted on the screen, and even when our gaze does wander, each frame is filled with enough detail to make such an action worthwhile – Lubitsch packages so much humour and heart into every scene, even the most passive viewer will find something of value. It may take place in a setting that is increasingly more distant as a result of the social and cultural details with which the director is working with, but there are a few universal themes that support the film, and it becomes quite a charming endeavour that may not occupy the upper echelons of his career, but certainly doesn’t leave us at a loss, since there is always something about this film that makes it incredibly valuable and worthwhile.