So This is Paris | Nicola Lubitsch, Joseph McBride, Jan-Christopher Horak

[Jan-Christopher Horak] My name is Chris Horak. I'm director of UCLA Film and Television Archive, and I'm also the curator of this series. My own interest in Lubitsch began over forty years ago when I wrote my master's thesis at Boston University on Ernst Lubitsch and the rise of UFA. Focusing on Lubitsch's beginnings in Germany before World War I, I followed his rise from a comic actor to a world-famous film director of epic costume films. All produced, ah, for, ah, Germany's largest film company at the time, the Universum Film, AG which had been founded in 1917. Lubitsch, of course went to Hollywood in 1922, and never looked back. Ah, in the early 1980s, I confronted Lubitsch again while writing my dissertation on German Jewish refugees to Hollywood. And while Ernst Lubitsch was not an émigré per se, he was a guiding light, for the German emigrate community, as well as the director of possibly the most sophisticated anti-Nazi film to come out of Hollywood during the war years, "To Be or Not to Be," from 1942. While researching my thesis, I also interviewed the screenwriter Walter Rice, who lit, who literally worshipped the ground Lubitsch walked on. He told me that Lubitsch, even though he never took credit, ah, was the author, and worked on the scripts of every one of his films. He, he described how he and Billy Wilder would sit around the pool and just throw out ideas at Lubitsch and Lubitsch would, just pace back and forth say, "Yes. Yes, no, maybe. "Do it better." So, now I'd like to introduce our guest, Joseph McBride. Um, McBride has published eighteen books, including, "Steven Spielberg, a Biography," "Frank Capra, the cast, ah, "The Catastrophe of Success," three books on Orson Welles. Um, two books on John Ford. Ah, and a, ah, a very highly regarded interview book with Howard Hawks, called, "Hawks on Hawks." Ah, McBride was critic and reporter for, "The Daily Variety," for many years, and also a professor at the Cinema Department of San Francisco State University, where he taught screenwriting and film history, and of course, he has a long career as a filmmaker, too, but, that's another story. So, without further ado, Joseph McBride. Thank you. [Applause] [George McBride] Thank you Chris, it's really nice of you to have me here and to have this fantastic Lubitsch series. Ah, done at the same time my book is coming out. Ah, I'll just give a very brief introduction because I want to save time for, ah, our discussion with Nicola Lubitsch after the film and it's wonderful to have her here. She's such a treasure. She and I, ah, spoke, we met back in, ah, Twenty Ten, when there was a Lubitsch series I curated in Locarno, Switzerland. We showed all of his films with, best possible prints. So, you're gonna see beautiful 35 millimeter prints of his films of, a good selection of his films in both Germany and the U. S. Um, just to give you a little background on this wonderful film. This is a delightful, frothy comedy, um. Ah, Lubitsch made this toward the end of the silent period in 1926. And he was working for Warner Brothers; he was imported to America by Mary Pickford and, ah, made one film and then Warner's snapped him up. They were a kind of a, fledgling studio. Ah, supported by Rin Tin Tin. The German Shepherd supported the German director, basically. Ah, he was the moneymaker and Lubitsch, Lubitsch's films made money, but they weren't, you know, big smashes, but they were tremendous critical successes. The critics and the, fellow directors all thought Lubitsch was the greatest. And, ah, many of them learned from him such as Hitchcock and Renoir and Welles and Ophuls and, ah, you know, you name them, just on and on. I, David Niven called him the master's master, which I think is a good phrase. And, um, so Lubitsch was brought by Warner's to, ah, give prestige to the studio and he had a lot of freedom as a result. And he made some extraordinary silent films for them. Um. The, "The Marriage Circle," is a great, great film. I did a, um, ah, there's a chapter from my book on, Bright Lights, website, where they embed "The Marriage Circle," and you can watch it there, but watch it here, too. Um, and, ah, "Lady Windermere's Fan," is a wonderful film. The, um, American silent period is, is among the hardest of his films to see and one reason I wrote this book was a selfish reason because I just wanted to see the films. They were inaccessible when I started. Um, and there were a few out on DVD. More and more have come out on DVD. But some have never come out in the United States. And, ah, there are a few on YouTube, only and some I had to get from collectors and I went to Europe to see the films. It was a real adventure and really fun. Um, but, "So, This Is Paris," is one of these films that's kind of hard to see. Ah, he made, ah, these several classic films and in the silent period and, ah, Um, you can see "The Marriage Circle," and "Lady Windermere's Fan," but, "So, This Is Paris," has always been, kind of, mysteriously missing in action. And, ah, "The Prince," I have a tape of it that's very bad condition, ah, kind of a bad dupe, and, they've restored it, so it looks very nice, and you'll see a beautifully restored print. And this was the end of his time at Warner Brothers. They were getting tired of him not making a lot of money and they were kind of getting, Philistine about his work. You know, why don't you make a, bigger film and he said well, why don't you give me more money to make a bigger film, you know. And, ah, they were they, they had gotten their, the benefits of the prestige and the stock was rising and all that and they felt they didn't need him anymore. They were very short-sighted and they were getting interested in making sound pictures and he became one of the best early sound, ah, filmmakers who helped create the musical. And, ah, so he did this film, and then he moved to, um, to, ah, MGM, ah. But, he once said I've been to Paris, France and I've been to Paris, Paramount and I prefer Paris, Paramount. And this is not Paris, Paramount. It's Paris, Warner Brothers, but it's the same thing. It's his imaginary construction of Paris, which you know part of what he brought to American cinema was a continental, sensibility about sex, adult, sexuality and adult relationships between men and women. Much in advance of what we have today in American films usually is very juvenile. And, ah, I, I think the, the main interest for me in Lubitsch's films, there's a lot of risque sexual humor, but, ah, it's the way men and women treat each other. It's very complex in his films with women are always fascinating characters. Quite often, he has, ah, three-way relationships. He deals with unorthodox sexual relationships and, and they're very complex and subtle and a lot of his style is done in, ah, looks and gestures and that's what, that's what fellow directors admired so much about him. And you'll see that in this film and it's, it's a subtle, ah, light-hearted, but, ah, interesting commentary on the, ah, relationships between the sexes. But I'll just say one more thing that when I was in Locarno, I, I met Jean Doucet, who's a distinguished elderly French critic and, he said he thought Lubitsch invented the musical with, "The Oyster Princess," which is a film made in 1919 in Germany, which is going to be part of this series. Wonderful, wild, zany film. And it was a silent film and I said, well, what do you mean, he invented the musical. And there was a great sequence in there called the, "Foxtrot Epidemic." At a wedding where everybody breaks out into a foxtrot. And it's just tremendous. It's a musical number within a silent film. But of course silent films were never silent. They had an orchestra playing or a piano or an organ at least. And, ah, in, "So, This Is Paris," he does one of his most lavish musical numbers, in a silent film. Ah, so, ah, a charleston contest. It'll blow your mind. It's really, ah, [Chuckles from audience] visual, tour de force spectacular. It's like an orgy on film, you know. And, um, so he's anticipating musicals, and he invented the musical, according to Doucet. And then, when he made actual musicals in 1929 onward, he made some of the best, most innovative musicals. He also invented the romantic comedy along the way. Anyway, so enjoy this wonderful film and then we'll talk with Nicola and get her reactions and answer your questions. Thank you. [Applause] [McBride] This is such a beautiful print, I mean, this film has been, you know, I was mentioning a lot of the, [McBride] silent American films are very hard to see and, ah. [McBride] As I said, one of the reasons I wrote this book was very selfish. [McBride] I just wanted to see the films. And, so I had to go to Europe and [McBride] go to different archives and things. But the American period is, is, ah, [McBride] difficult to see. "Lady Windermere's Fan," there's a beautiful DVD of that I recommend it. Um. [McBride] "Marriage Circle," good DVD. [McBride] But, "Three Women," is very hard to see. "The Patriot," is partly lost, mostly lost. [McBride] "Kiss Me Again," is totally lost which was supposed to be one of his best films. [McBride] Ah, "Forbidden Paradise," is being restored by, [McBride] The Museum of Modern Art. [McBride] And apparently will show at Pordenone in the fall. That's a wonderful movie, but it's been existing in really horrible looking, [McBride] Russian dupes for years like, "Rosita." "Rosita," was triumphantly restored by, ah, [McBride] The Museum of Modern Art and apparently will be shown this fall at the Egyptian theater, I'm told by Dave Kehr. [McBride] That's why it's not in this retrospective, but, um. [McBride] So, you know, it's a spotty, [McBride] thing to see Lubitsch films so, um, [McBride] you know, it's better than it was when I started this book, ah, nine years ago. [McBride] But around the year Two Thousand, there was almost nothing of his work out on, [McBride] American DVD. Ah, and, and now more and more have come out. Some you can only see on YouTube or whatever. It's, it's, ah, you know, it's kind of scandalous, because he's such a great director, but you know, I wrote the book also to try to get interest, [McBride] jack, jump started again on him. Which I, that's one reason I write books. I did that with John Ford twice. You know. [Horak] A bunch of his German films are also out on DVD. [McBride] Yeah. [Horak] They're in, in, obviously published in, in Germany, but you can get them. [McBride] Yeah, there is a wonderful set from, ah, is it Kino, whatever. It's called, "Lubitsch in Berlin." [McBride] Um, some of the Lubitsch films are in a documentary that Nicola is in, and by Robert Fischer. But a lot of the German films are, um, hard to see. [McBride] And ah, they just discovered one called the, [McBride] ah, "The Rosentopf Case." [McBride] Ah, which I, is the only one, now I haven't seen. It's the nineteen minute fragment of the detective film he made when he was, in 1918. He starred in it, and directed it. So, ah, thanks for, you know, figuring out, [Horak] It's probably a spoof of the detective [McBride] Yeah, yeah it's a spoof. [Horak] film, because detective films were unbelievably popular in Germany in the, the whole war period. [McBride] Right. It's kind of a, he plays a familiar character of Sally and he's a kind of bumbling detective. [McBride] But Nicola, you had never seen this film before, had you. [Nicola Lubitsch] No. [McBride] So tell us your reaction. [Nicola] Of my reaction. Um. [Nicola] I, I love the dance part. I always loved all my father's things that have to do with dance. I think it was just magical. [Nicola] Um. It reminds me. It's kind of, I mean, it's just an extraordinary scene really, isn't it? And, [Horak] And, and he'd done it before. He did it in, in ah, in ah, "I Don't Want to be a Man." "Ich möchte kein Mann sein." [McBride] Hmm. [Horak] There's a scene, it's not quite as extravagant, but there's a scene like that in that film. [Nicola] And "The Oyster Princess." [Horak] Or, "The Oyster Princess." [Nicola] Remarkable. [McBride] In The Merry, "The Merry Widow," there's a fantastic embassy ball. Those are the most spectacular, tour de force dance scenes in his films. [Nicola] Right. [McBride] Um, but the musicals are all wonderful, but. [McBride] Um. It's a spectacular eruption, like an explosion almost, that sequence. Really a tour de force. John Mescall was the cinematographer, by the way. [Nicola] Could we change seats. I keep, [McBride] Oh. [Nicola] Back and forth, I don't. I'm sorry, but. [McBride] Which, where would you like to sit? [Nicola] I'd rather sit here, because [unintelligible]. [McBride] Okay. [Horak] That's fine. [McBride] Yeah. [Nicola] So much better, yes, you saw the director's daughter. [Horak] Yes, of course. [Laughter] [McBride] I think you told me, a lot of your memories of your father, revolve around music don't they? [Nicola] They do. He was very musical. When I was little he used to, um, [Nicola] play the piano and tell me stories. He'd come back from the studio, [Nicola] and he couldn't read music, but he absolutely loved to play. [Nicola] And it didn't matter who was at our house if it was Horowitz or Rubinstein. [Nicola] It would be daddy at the piano. It's sort of, ah. [Nicola] Playing kind of Lubitsch music from Lubitsch land. [Laughter] It was no particular, you know, [Nicola] it wasn't Strauss or any of that kind of thing. It was just totally his music and he would make up incredible stories and [Nicola] make it a wonderland. [Nicola] When I would go to sleep at night also, I would hear him playing the piano. [McBride] Mm-hmm. [Nicola] So and I have the piano. [Nicola] It was a wedding present from [unintelligible]. [McBride] Hmm. On one of the DVDs, I think it's, "Trouble in Paradise," they have some of his music. [Nicola] Right. [McBride] You gave that to them, I presume. [Nicola] I, I, yeah, they got the music and it was actually the one thing I did that I recorded that I liked. [Nicola] A memory of him. Yeah. [McBride] There are some beautiful pictures you put on Facebook recently. Of you playing the piano with your dad too, right? [Nicola] Yeah, yeah. Or faking it. [McBride] Faking it. [Horak laughs] [McBride] Yeah. [Nicola] He made me. They made me take piano lessons. [McBride] Oh yeah. [Nicola] From when I was very little I didn't like to practice or anything, but, I did inherit a tremendous love of music from him and my cousin, [Nicola] um, my father's niece, [Nicola] also loved music. She was a much older woman because, [Nicola] she would have been in her hundreds, now. It was all kind of, my father was twenty years younger than his, ah, closest sibling. [Nicola] So, he, ah, was a spoil, he was spoiled and musical and his, and his cousin, his niece, [Nicola] lived in Lincoln Center and would go over every year at New Year's Eve to hear whatever was at the Opera. "Fledermaus," or "Der Rosenkavalier," or whatever. [McBride] You mentioned, "Fledermaus," I should say that this play, that this is based on, is, hardly, the source of, "Der Fledermaus," the famous opera. [McBride] And Lubitsch had made a film in Germany called, "The Merry Jail," in 1917, which was based on the same play. [McBride] So they're all kind of interrelated about a man who goes to jail and mixture, you know. The comedy of errors we live in, a married couple. [McBride] And so it's, he loved opera, and he loved operettas, and a lot of his films derived from, the culture of that period, you know, the wilhelmine empire or the, [Nicola] Well, I read in your book that he saved his first money and bought a cello. [McBride] Yeah. [Nicola] Which I didn't know. [McBride] Yeah, yeah. [Nicola] We had a cello actually sitting in our living room, but I never ever saw him play it. [McBride] Ah. [Nicola] It looked good. [McBride] Ahhh. [McBride] Well, his films are profoundly musical I mean the rhythms and [McBride] Peter Bogdanovich, who's seated here by the way, has made some of the best Lubitsch homages. Over here. [Applause] [Nicola] Oh. [McBride] I love, "At Long Last Love," in particular, underrated film, really beautiful. [McBride] A tribute to Lubitsch, very, the most lavish Lubitsch homage in motion pictures, but, Peter pointed out that the characters in his talking pictures have a certain rhythm, [McBride] that's Lubitschian. You can identify and, um, he acted out all the parts, since he was an actor. [McBride] That's considered a no-no for most directors, but the actors seem to enjoy it because he was funny and, [McBride] Jack Benny said, ah, to Peter, [impersonating Benny] "Well, it's a little broad, but you got the idea." [Laughter] [McBride] And, ah, so the rhythm's, somehow the speech of your dad, comes across in the films. Do you notice that in your, when you watch his talking pictures? [McBride] That they talk, there's a kind of Lubitschian way of talking. [Nicola] I don't think I've ever really thought about that. [McBride] Hmm. [Nicola] I just, there's no, there are no extra words, though. There are no extra scenes. [Nicola] Everything is there, because it needs to be there, which is the complete opposite, [Nicola] of film today. [McBride] Mm, hmm. [Nicola] Nobody understands any more that, less is more, you know, and in case you don't get it [Nicola] they'll repeat it over and over, which is one thing my father never did. He always, I think, [Nicola] I think, I know that he, [Nicola] expected you to be intelligent and he expected you to get it, and that to me is the Lubitsch touch. [McBride] Hmm. [Nicola] Counting on your intelligence, your sense of, [Nicola] fantasy, of magic, of wonderland. [Nicola] Um, and, yeah. [Horak] Yeah, what's really amazing about this film is, ah, [Horak] Ah, there's that economy and yet [Horak] everything, I mean, literally everything, from the body movements, the hand movements to [Horak] what you read as titles, has, [Horak] multiple meanings and, and floors that open up and drop you into other meanings, and it is, [Horak] unbelievably complex, even though the film as a whole if you try to boil it down to and a, [Horak] a plot, well, it's a trifle. Right? [McBride] Mm, hmm. [Nicola] Right. [Horak] But, nevertheless. [Nicola] Yeah. [McBride] I was thinking there's a great quote from GK Chesterton, who I love, and he said, [McBride] "It's very easy to be solemn and it's very hard to be frivolous." [McBride] You know. And this is a frivolous film, but it has an underpinning of, [McBride] pain, or you know, like it's, it's not quite as, [McBride] emotional as some of the Lubitsch comedies, but a lot of the comedies have to do with marital misunderstandings and infidelities and, and, um, [McBRide] real hurt, you know, but, but a comic approach to life, [McBride] solving life's problems. [Horak, clears throat] I think the, the scene that, where I really fell in love with Lubitsch's American period is in [Horak] "Three Women," a film I know you don't like as much. But, the scene of, [Horak] of Pauline Frederick. [McBride] Mm, hmm. [Horak] We're looking in the mirror and realizing that her daughter is taking her, [McBride] Yeah. [Horak] lover away from her. [McBride] Oh, I like that scene, yeah. [Horak] That is, that is, I mean, that scene is unbelievably powerful. [McBride] Yeah, it's one of the few Lubitsch films taking place in the United States. Even in Berkeley. It takes place at UC Berkeley. [McBride] Part of it. Although it's filmed in Burbank, I think. . [McBride] One, one footnote to this film, tomorrow, I hope you come and see "Ninotchka," and "Shop Around the Corner," two of his great masterpieces. [McBride] This film is partly responsible for "Ninotchka," [McBride] oddly enough, because, Greta Garbo loved this film. And you don't normally think of Greta Garbo as somebody who loves, [McBride] you know, romps, comic romps, but. [McBride] She wanted to do a comedy and so she wanted to do a film with Lubitsch and she flipped over this film so much that, [McBride] she and Lilyan Tashman, who is so wonderful as, ah, Georgette, had a wild romance because of this film, you know. [McBride] And then she wanted to work with Lubitsch and he met her and he said, [immitating Lubitsch] "God, my God, [McBride] "Garbo, we've got to make a film together. Those idiots at MGM. I've got to put us together," you know, you know. [McBride] Who has questions for us, ah, Nicola any questions about Lubitsch as a father. Yeah. [Horak] Up there. [Audience member] Let me come down. [Unintelligible] How he got started in films? [McBride] He was um, well, he was born in 1892. He directed his first film in 1913. [McBride] He was with the, ah, Max Reinhardt Theater Company, which was the most prestigious theater company in Europe. [McBride] And he was a stage actor and then he, um, started acting in motion pictures in, ah, 1913. [McBride] So, he would have been, what is that, twenty one. [McBride] You know there was a period when very young people were getting into films. [McBride] And then he, ah, made a film called, "The Pride of the Firm," which somebody else directed, which was a big hit. [McBride] Where he played a comical shop clerk and that's, drew from his own life. His father was a, ah, women's tailor. [McBride] And Ernst, he wanted Ernst to be a clerk or an accountant and he was a complete failure at that, he, [McBride] bumbling, he didn't, wasn't interested in business, etc. And so, [McBride] he made movies where he played that kind of a character and then he, he directed his own version of it, called, "Shoe Palace Pinkus," which is a charming film. [McBride] And, ah, audiences loved him as the schlemiel character and then, [McBride] he got more and more confident in, the films were very broad at first and then they got more and more subtle and he started experimenting in different genres. [Horak] But the apprentices appear in virtually every, [McBride] Right. [Horak] Lubitsch film. The, you know, the, the, the shopkeeper's apprentices are, [Horak] always, always there, its "Shop Around the Corner," [McBride] "Shop Around the Corner," [?] yeah. [Horak] They're always characters very dear to his heart and they're always, very, bad. [McBride] Yeah, the character played by William Tracy, [?] is kind of mischievous shop clerk, and he's really the Lubitsch character in that film. [McBride] Although Lubitsch's alter ego is probably, ah, Felix Bressart, who is a, a, lovely character actor. [McBride] But "Shop Around the Corner," is so personal to him, because that's, you know, his dad and mother, [McBride] ran the shop. And I, when I went to Berlin, to research this book, I, I, his apartments, their apartments are still there. [McBride] The parents had one floor, the children had another. [McBride] The clothing was made on the ground floor and the shop was at the corner. And it's now a, [McBride] beauty salon. And across the street is where Ernst was born, which was the building that's been torn down. [McBride] It was a Cajun restaurant when I was there. But, it's the shop around the corner, you know. And so he was making a movie about his, ah, [McBride] life. And Nicola, you told me, ah, you see a lot of his family and his background in his films, don't you? [Nicola] I do. I mean, I, [Nicola] very personal things. I think that's sort of like writing a book, too. [McBride] Yeah. [Nicola] You bring a lot of yourself and [McBride] Yes. [Nicola] It's autobiographical. [McBride] Yes, yes, it's not, not unusual, but it's, it's, it's good to know because when we know that, we would care more about the, [McBride] the milieu and the characters going on. [McBride] Yeah. What are some like, um, [McBride] I, I don't know, in this film since it's new to you, um, [Nicola] Oh, I don't know, but I [inaudible] "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife," which I don't know if anybody's seen that movie, um. [Horak] It's coming in this series. [Nicola] Yeah, he meets Claudette Colbert, they meet buying pajamas. And he's buying the tops and she's buying the bottoms. [Nicola] Well, my father only wore tops. [McBride] Hmm. [Laughter] [Nicola] So, that's, [Laughter] [Nicola] That's taken from his life. [Nicola] Um. [Horak] Any other questions out there. [Horak] Yeah, right up front right here. We wait for microphone. [McBride] Yeah. [Horak] So the people in back can hear you. [Audience member] I read online, um, just recently that, [Audience member] your father had a first wife named Lenny and [Audience member] she had an affair with a screenwriter of this movie, Hanns Kraly. [Nicola] Yes. [Audience member] Did that end their collaboration, and did it end their personal, [Nicola] It not, it definitely did, end on that. And the story is, um, [Nicola] Poncho you prob, [Audience member, inaudible] [Nicola] I mean, he never loved, what? [Audience member] Hanns Kraly. [Nicola] Kraly, right. [McBride] Kraly wrote a lot of the silent films, most of silent films. He was a very good writer. [Nicola] [Inaudible] when this incident happened which is they were on the dance floor, and daddy went up and hit Hanns Kraly, slapped him in the face. [Nicola] Which is, I never ever heard my father raise his voice, [Nicola] lose his temper, anything. [Nicola] Um, so that would be the one time. [McBride] Very sad story. But then he moved down to the great Samson Rafelson who wrote a lot of his greatest films including, ah, [McBride] "Shop Around the Corner," and, then, [McBride] he worked with Billy Wilder and Walter Rush and, um, [McBride] ah, Charles Brackett on, "Ninotchka." He worked with the best writers, but Wilder said Lubitsch was the greatest writer in the world. He said, "I don't mean screenwriter. I mean the greatest writer in the world." You know. [McBride] I mean he worked on the scripts. The writers of, "Ninotchka." actually, [McBride] petitioned the Writer's Guild, to put Lubitsch's name on the credits, which is almost unheard of in Hollywood. [McBride] And the Guild said, no, we don't want a directors name on the credits but, the writers were so, [McBride] enamored with him and they loved collaborating with him. [Horak] And Hanns Kraly would, really works on almost all of the German, the later German films and all the American films. [McBride] The silent era. [Horak] Really after, after Lubitsch, he ended up in B pictures, and, [McBride] Yeah, sad story. [Horak] he worked very irregularly. [Horak] Ended up pretty, [McBride] Who else has a question? [Nicola] I would like to ask Peter to say something about my father. You're here and you're one of the great, [Nicola] admirers of his and I always love to read what you say about him. And would you mind just, [Peter Bogdanavich] Yeah, I, [Nicola] You would, okay. [Bogdanavich] I asked Jean Renoir once what he thought of Lubitsch and Renoir said, [French accent] "Lubitsch?" [Bogdanavich, French accent] "Well, he invented the modern Hollywood" [Laughter] [Bogdanavich] By which he meant, that in 1924, '25, when he came over here [Bogdanavich] Um. Movies were largely influenced by Griffith. But when Lubitsch came here, he changed the sort of, um, [Bogdanavich] puritanical, square, [Bogdanavich] ah, sexual mores in America. And brought the European touch, [Bogdanavich] ah, and European charm to the, to the movies and, um, [Bogdanavich] As you, as you said he invented the musical, movie musical with, "The Love Parade." [Bogdanavich] And he made five of the best musicals ever made. I think the, "Merry Widow," is a, a, [Bogdanavich] masterpiece. But, but he didn't make a bad film, you know. [Bogdanavich] Ah, he was great. [Bogdanavich] The story about Jack Benny is funny that you already told. [Bogdanavich] Ah, but what actually happened is, I said to Jack, "Is it true that Lubitsch acted out all the parts?" [Bogdanavich] And he said, "Yes." I said, "Well, was he any good?" And that's when he said, [Immitating Benny] "Well, he was a little broad, but you got the idea." [Laughter] [Bogdanavich] And Signe Hasso, a name from the past, who, ah, played the French maid in, "Heaven Can Wait," [Bogdanavich] Um, I asked her about Lubitsch. She said, [imitating Hasso] "Yes, he played all the parts. [Bogdanavich] "Even the French maid." She said, "he was very good as the French maid." [Laughter] [Bogdanavich] It's, it's not common that, [Bogdanavich] that, that actors tolerate the director, ah, giving them line readings and so on. [Bogdanavich] I remember when I did a picture with Streisand and I gave her a line reading and her agent called me. So you're giving Streisand line readings? [Bogdanavich, over laughter] I said, well she doesn't have to do it exactly the way I said it. It's just the idea. [Bogdanavich] And, um, people don't, actors don't generally like that but, with Lubitsch. [Bogdanavich] It's true that they had a certain rhythm in his, ah, [Bogdanavich] talking pictures. Whether it's Gary Cooper or, [Bogdanavich] or, ah, Melvyn Douglas, [Bogdanavich] or, Herbert Marshall they all have a certain rhythm, [Bogdanavich] when in the talking pictures. And he's, [Bogdanavich] sound was very good for Lubitsch. He, he knew how to use it. [Bogdanavich] Ah, in 1929 when everybody in Hollywood was saying, "Sound, what am I gonna do, Jesus." [Bogdanavich]And a lot of the movies are very stiff and very old fashioned. [Bogdanavich] Lubitsch does a musical! [Audience member, unintelligible] [Bogdanavich] The hell with it. I got sound. I can do a musical. And it's extraordinary. [Bogdanavich] Um, and yeah, I'm so glad, Joe wrote this book because, it, it, it does say how Lubitsch did it. [Bogdanavich] And to a degree, because mystery of personality is hard to define. [Bogdanavich] But, um, it's a great book. [Bogdanavich] I suggest you all read it. It's just wonderfully written and you really have a sense of Lubitsch from, from the book. [Bogdanavich] Joe you've done a great job. And I think, the fact that that you're doing this Lubitsch festival here, [Bogdanavich] is, is just great because, they don't come any better than Lubitsch, okay. [Horak] Yes. [Bogdanavich] and we could use a little Lubitsch right now. [Horak] Oh, yeah. [Bogdanavich] As the movie business stinks. [Applause] [Horak] It, it's, Peter, it's interesting you mentioned Renoir because watching the Charleston scene, [Horak] I kept thinking of Renoir's first short and whether he saw this, [McBride] Oh, yeah. [Horak] when he made, "The Charleston," who, in 1926. [Bogdanavich] Probably did. [Horak] A year after this. [McBride] Yeah. That's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. Thank you for the comments, Peter. Um. [Bogdanavich] My pleasure. [Nicola] Thank you. [McBride] When Peter and I were in an Orson Welles film there, Orson used to give line readings, to me, anyway. [McBride] Because I was not an actor. But he would always preface it by saying, it's terrible for a director to give an actor a line reading but, [Laughter] [McBride] then he give me the line reading and I was so pleased because I was not an actor and I was delighted but, [McBride] The other actor, the other director who would act out all the parts was Chaplin. [McBride] And I once mentioned that to John Ford. I said, you know Chaplin and Lubitsch acted out all the parts, trying to get Ford to talk about directing actors. [McBride] Which was impossible, you know. But he said, [Imitating Ford] "Well, I'd like to see that. That must have been funny," you know. [Laughter] [McBride] So, Lubitsch violated that, but I guess they loved, I mean, he was a lovable character and he was a funny actor and, [McBride] you know, if he's playing Gene Tierney, she's, she gets the idea that she's not, [McBride] gonna imitate, imitate Lubitsch directly, but she gets sort of the broad picture. [McBride] But, ah, I guess one of the cameramen, I found an interview where he said that Lubitsch, ah, [McBride] He started secretly filming Lubitsch acting out the parts and he put it in the rushes and Lubitsch was so thrilled. [McBride] He said, "Oh, please do that every time." You know. [Laughter] [McBride] "I love this stuff," you know, I mean he was an actor and then he gave up acting he wasn't a great actor, but, [McBride] um, he knew that and he channeled himself through better actors, but. [McBride] You know, he was a ham his whole life and he loved doing that and that's part of his, I think that's part of why the actor's are so good in his films. [McBride] He brought out the best in all these people who, ah, you know, like, Kay Francis, I've never been a big fan of, but, [McBride] when I saw her in, "Trouble in Paradise," which was the first Lubitsch film I ever saw. [McBride] I thought, wow, she's so wonderful and sexy and suave and everything. Started watching her other films. She's kind of stiff and, [McBride] you know, not very interesting, and I thought well, Lubitsch brought that out in her. [McBride] The best that people have in them, he found and helped encourage. [Horak] Yes. [Audience member, inaudible] [Horak] Wait, can you wait a second for the microphone? [Audience member] Thank you. [Audience member] Ah, just a question, why is the make up on the men so exaggerated. Like, the lipstick, the eyes. [Horak] It's, it's actually not exaggerated. [Horak] The problem was, ah, in 1925, the film stock they were using was called orthochromatic film stock and it was a film stock that could not, [Horak] capture red tones. So, Caucasians, who have a lot of red tones in their, in their, ah, skin, [Horak] they, yeah, it wouldn't, it wouldn't turn out. It would, so the actors would have to put on white makeup. [Horak] To cover up the red tones from their skin. So they could and that's why, [Horak] you see these degrade, gradations of, of, of, [Horak] on their faces, it's from the makeup. And, and there wasn't anything to do about it until, two years later, [Horak] they invented, what was called panchromatic film stock, which captured the full spectrum of light in black and white that the early film stock didn't. [McBride] That's true and also another interesting thing, Monte Blue, who plays the lead in this film, he's so terrific in, "The Marriage Circle," in a little more serious part. [McBride] He was Native American. His name was Montgomery Bluefeather, actually. [Nicola] Really? [McBride] Yeah, and he was, he was a stuntman and Lubitsch turned this strapping stuntman, [McBride] kind of clownish character into a leading man. [McBride] He liked the clownishness of Monte Blue. And he's charming in these films, ah, but he's, he is kind of buffoonish. [McBride] And then the makeup, kind of fits that, I think, you know. [McBride] He's not your, he's not Ronald Coleman, who was in another Lubitsch film, but, he's, [McBride] you know, he's everyman kind of character, that all of us are, as Lubitsch said, "All of us are foolish at least once a day," you know. [Laughter] [Horak] Keeping up with other foolishnesses, all the way in the back there. [Audience member] Thank you. Ah, what I think fascinates me most about Lubitsch is, [Audience member] his gift of connecting with actresses. I think he and Cukor are neck and neck for just having that gift like no other. [Audience member] Um, as you mentioned, he may, manage to make Kay Francis sexy. He managed to make Garbo laugh. Um, I think it was Cary Beecham, [Audience member] who said, he was the only director who could make Jeanette MacDonald be sexy. [Laughs] [Audience member] And I just I wanted to ask Miss Lubitsch, [Audience member] What she thinks her father had, that he was able to connect with actresses in that way. [Nicola] I think he loved women. I mean, he really did. [Audience member] He was a feminist, I think. [Nicola] Yeah, absolutely was a feminist. He came from a family of very strong women. [Nicola] Um, there were business women in the family. [Nicola] And a great joy de vivre. And I think he really just loved women and I think that comes out in all of his films and I think he was, [Nicola] way ahead of his time in his attitude towards women. [Nicola] If you come and see I, "I Don't Want to Be a Man" [Nicola] Um, or have you, or if you've seen it, you know that. I mean, it's, [Nicola] they're so far ahead. Especially the German silents. I think are, [Nicola] are incredibly advanced and very feminist. I mean really feminist. [Nicola] So I think when you love somebody when you like them so much when you admire them that comes through. [Nicola] I mean, it's not a man trying to control his women. It's somebody with affection and understanding, [Nicola] who is, that they're working for because they love him. I think that's really it. [McBride] There was a, I found a article that a Elsa Schallert who was a writer for the L. A. Times, a good show business writer. [McBride] She said she had interviewed many directors and she had never found one who understood women as much as Lubitsch. And he would make some very [McBride] shrewd and loving but analytical comments about his actresses, ah, [McBride] personalities and, I quote them in the book. And one thing I did was I found a lot of interviews with him. [McBride] He was interviewed a lot in Germany and U.S. and these are kind of forgotten interviews, but. [McBride] He was extremely eloquent about his methods and since he's been dead for so long and we haven't had the benefit of, [McBride] hearing interviews with him in later years like a lot of directors, [McBride] did, you know, um. [McBride] But he gave these interviews and I found a lot of them and also Paramount, [McBride] had some very good press releases at the time. [McBride] They would interview him and sometimes he'd write the press releases and Howard ? at the Academy helped me find these. [McBride] And these are like gold, you know, Lubitsch explaining his own method, which has been kind of forgotten, that this stuff exists. [McBride] So it's kind of his voice is heard in the book. [Nicola] Is that in your book? [McBride] Yeah. [Nicola] I haven't finished it. [McBride] Yeah. [Nicola] Okay. [Horak] Right, right, go ahead, right there. [Horak] Where, where's the mic? [McBride] Right over here. Yeah, over here. [McBride] What a beautiful theater. [Horak] Keeps you in shape, Nate. [McBride] It's the first time I've been here, a beautiful theater. Wow. Yeah. [Audience member] Thank you. [McBride] Yeah. [Audience member] First, I just wanted to say that I love, "Broken Lullaby." It's I think a very heartfelt film. [Audience member] It doesn't really get played even though I think it was recently a remake of it. But, [Audience member] I was first of all curious if he ever talked about it, what he thought about it, since it wasn't a comedy. [Audience member] But I think a very sincere film and secondly about his method that you were discussing. [Audience member] I was thinking most of the later films are adaptations. [Audience member] Even, heaven can, "Heaven Can Wait," is from a, [Audience member] from a German play and so many of the other work is, [Audience member] are adaptations. Did he have, like a whole store of stuff, that he was looking at to make, or [Audience member] how is it that he came up with subject matters and so much was adaptation. [McBride] I was always curious, you know, where did he find, [McBride] it was kind of a joke in Hollywood, where do you find all these obscure Hungarian plays, they're usually Hungarian plays. [McBride] I think this, you know, I couldn't really always find out, where did he locate this play? [McBride] But what happened in those days, the studio system was great with story departments and they had readers. [McBride] They would scour the world for plays and novels. [McBride] And he rarely adapted a novel. "Cluny Brown," was an exception. But usually a play. And they would have reports. [McBride] And the directors would read these reports, and then they'd say, oh, you know, or. [McBride] Actually, I mean, he would, he'd seen a lot of these plays when he was younger, ah, [McBride] you know in Europe, and he was in a lot of plays and, and some of them are good and you can find the originals. [McBride] But he always improved upon them and, "Broken Lullaby," was based on a French play and, um. [McBride] It's, it's, you got some, you know, creaky elements, but as parts of it are very moving. When it becomes a romantic comedy, [McBride] It becomes most interesting to me. It's this very tragic World War I story, but [McBride] Ah, when, it becomes very bizarre. A soldier falls in love with a, [McBride] the girlfriend of a soldier he's killed and it becomes a strange love story. [McBride] And, ah, then Lubitsch really is firing on all cylinders, you know. [McBride] He, he periodically made ah, ah, heavy dramas. [McBride] I think because comedies are undervalued, unfortunately, even of course today. And so he felt the need to, ah, [McBride] do something really serious, quote serious, and those are not always his best films. [McBride] But he did, ah, tragic films like, "Die Flamme," was a real tragic film, very good film, at least the part that exists, ah. [McBride] "The Patriot," ah, again partly missing. "Rausch," which was based on a Strindberg play so he would do these heavy dramas once in a while. [Horak] Funny thing about those Hungarian screen writers because, [Hoarak] um, their agent was a guy named George Martin who had, had a shop in Vienna and was a literary agent and, um, [Horak] The writers, the, the Hungarian writers working for him, they would write plays in Hollywood and then he would sell them as, [Horak] Hungarian plays that had actually been published in Hungary, when they hadn't. [Laughter] [McBride] Ah. That's really funny. [Horak] I mean, I know of, Ladislaus Fodor was one of those who did that, [Horak] Gina Kaus, a German, [Horak] They wrote several plays which they sold to Hollywood studios as plays. [Horak] Which were nothing but scripts that they had written. [McBride] That is so devious. [Horak] Because they knew the Hollywood Studios would buy them if they were plays because they said well somebody must have produced it. [Laughter] [McBride] Well, there was an old joke in Hollywood. It's not enough to be Hungarian, one must also have talent. [Laughter] [McBride] Hungarians were known for their tremendous cleverness and you know, [McBride] wiles, like that. I guess that's an example. [Horak] And there's also the example of the re, [Horak] If you go through a revolving door with a Hungarian behind you, he'll come out ahead. [McBride] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [Laughter] [McBride] But you can read for example the play that, ah, "Shop Around the Corner," is based on, is ah, [McBride] it's published you can read that and, ah, [McBride] ah, it's a pretty good play, but Lubitsch and his writers improved upon it, you know, [Horak] We had another question over there. Yes, Ma'am. [Audience member, inaudible] [Horak] Hold on, microphone's coming. [Audience member] Um, it's a question, I think, mostly for Mr. McBride, ah, about the Charleston sequence. I'm just wondering, [Audience member] um, first of all, if you had any research on that. You know, the kind of the making of that and the concept. [McBride] No, I didn't find out much about that, unfortunately. Um, um. [McBride] It's just spectacular to watch. And, ah, the set is astounding. Harold Grieve did the sets and it, you know, [McBride] Lubitsch shows the best of the studio system. They had such resources of craftsmen and, [McBride] crowds and, you know, I mean, he had a huge number of people in, ah, "Merry Widow," and that great dance number with mirrors and things and all kinds of, [McBride] spectacular stuff. And so he, I mean, it's kind of his spectacle side. [McBride] In Germany, he was known for spectacles and when you see, it might be surprising to people to think of him as a, [McBride] director of light comedies, that he did some very, [McBride] you know, heavy historical spectacles, with huge crowds in Germany. [McBride] He was great with crowds. He had a sense and Reinhardt was famous for directing crowds. [McBride] And he learned that, how to orchestrate crowd movement from Reinhardt and I think I suppose you could trace that to Reinhardt to some extent. [Audience member] Because that's what I'm curious about. There's no choreography per se, but somebody's staged the hell out of that. [McBride] Yeah. [Audience member] A lot of bodies in there. [McBride] Well, he probably had some good help that isn't credited. In those days, you know, very few names got on the screen. [McBride] but there are a lot of craftsmen, craft, and women that, [McBride] didn't get credit, who deserve a lot of credit. [Nicola] Uh, huh. [Horak] One of Max Reinhardt's most famous, ah, [Horak] presentations, [McBride] Yeah. [Horak] It was a pantomime called, "The Miracle," [Horak] and that was staged, ah, also in New York in 1923, with a cast of thousands literally. [McBride] Yeah. [Horak] And, and again I, um, Lubitsch was in the nine, I think, in, in 1912, in as an extra in one of those, "Miracle," productions that Reinhardt did. [McBride] And he did, "Sumurun," was based on a pantomime, [McBride] which Reinhardt had done on stage and Lubitsch made a film of it. That was Lubitsch's last acting performance. He played an, [McBride] Arabian hunchback, very strange film. It's interesting to see. [MBride] Um, but, um, it kind of, it was really going all out for tragedy and pathos. [McBride] He thought Chaplin was the greatest of all film performers and the greatest actor in the world. [McBride] And he was always kind of in awe of Chaplin. So he was, you know. But Lubitsch's tremendous way he blends comedy and drama. [McBride] Um, there's always as, Andrew Sarris said, the Lubitsch touch is not just leering sexuality, there's an undercurrent of melancholy all the time. [McBride] Which gives it, its depth, its character, [McBride] ah, depth and there, there's a sadness. [McBride] And a, you know, like for example, when he creates these mythical kingdoms or these beautiful, artificial worlds. [McBride] You kind of know that they don't exist, that can't exist or that they're gone. [McBride] He's kind of, ahh, eulogizing a world that existed, ah, and then died, you know in World War I, and. [McBride] He was also, as a Jewish person, he was excluded from, he would have been excluded from those societies, so you get that feeling of, [McBride] kind of, on the outside looking in, he wished he were part of it, but he knew he, [McBride] he knew he wasn't and he was making fun of it at the same time. There's a complex tone. [McBride] But in the romantic comedies, there's, there's always kind of an undertone of sadness like, Patsy Ruth Miller, I think is very good in this film. [McBride] Ah, you really feel for her. [Horak] Mm, hmm. [McBride] You know her husband is, [McBride] this foolish philanderer and she's home with her. You know, that scene where she's, her feet are tapping, yeah on the radio. [McBride] That's just a simple scene, but it's very poignant, you know, and he could do that, he could bring out poignancy with those, those moments. So, there's, [McBride] and then when they reconcile and, and then he shrinks to that little tiny thing. [Horak] Ha! [McBride] That's, it's very satisfying, isn't it? [Laughter] [Horak] Yes, yes. [McBride] Another question? [Horak] Right up there. [McBride] Yeah. [Horak] Right over there. [Audience member] Thank you again, for doing this. Ah, one of the things I found most fascinating about Lubitsch's films is, that [Audience member] for a period in the Twenties and the early Thirties, they all seemed to be set it in, [Audience member] in Lubitsch land basically, imaginary world's, countries with imaginary names, [Audience member] and then as the Thirties went on, ah [Audience member] politics seemed to invade Lubitsch land? [McBRide] Hmm. [Audience member] And you start to see more of that in, like in "Angel," "Ninotchka," [Audience member] of course, "To Be Or Not To Be," and in, "Cluny Brown." I was wondering if you could speak about Lubitsch, um, as a, a political being. [McBride] Well in my book, I write a lot about the socio-political background of Lubitsch, as I do with all my, [McBride] director subjects because I think it's very important to know where they came from. You know, what context they came from, but, [McBride] I think it's, it's kind of ah, an illusion that he's apolitical. There were people who claimed he was. [McBride] And some left-wing critics in the German period would attack him for being, [McBride] not sufficiently political, but actually those, those historical films, are you know, they're all about politics, but. [McBride] they tended to view politics through a prism of human, [McBride] behavior and sexuality rather than, [McBride] through, you know, the masses or ah, through Marxist theory or some, you know, [McBride] I mean, he was a dramatist, he was, he worked with people. But I think a lot of his films are very political but they're, ah, [McBride] It's, it's subtle its disguised. "Trouble in Paradise," for example is about the Great Depression. [McBride] It's full of economic references and it's full of references to the world situation and, [McBride] somebody wrote that, they thought he made a trilogy of great political films, "Trouble in Paradise," about capitalism. [McBride] "Ninotchka," about communism, stalinism and, ah, [McBride] "To Be or Not to Be," about fascism. You know, [McBride] And, ah, what partly happened was in, in the mid Thirties, during the depression, the audience's taste changed. [McBride] They didn't want to see the mythical kingdom films as much. They were not doing as well at the box office because, [McBride] Capra's, "It Happened One Night," was a huge hit and that, that was the kind of film that the audience wanted to see more of the proletarian, [McBride] type film and, and Lubitsch, ah, [McBride] adapted, you know, to that, to some extent with, "Shop Around the Corner," is about ordinary people's lives and he said at one point, [McBride] in an interview, ah, "We have to start showing how people earn their living," you know. [McBride] "It's not enough to just to show them in drawing rooms having fun." [McBride] You know, we have to deal with reality as it is and so the world changed, he changed his style, [McBride] and his outlook, ah, three or four times in his career. He was very adaptable. That helps account for his long career. [McBride] And I have a theory that comic directors usually last about ten years before the, [McBride] the audience kind of abandons them and there are a lot of examples like Sturgis and [McBride] Capra had great ten year runs and then you know there nobody was, [Horak] Tashlin. [McBride] Tashlin, yeah. Jerry Lewis, ah. [McBride] But Lubitsch lasted a long time because he was adaptable and he was, he was rich, he had many, [McBride] facets to him and in Germany, he made all these different kinds of films and so he, um, [McBride] And then when censorship came in really hard in 1934, [McBride] he took a hiatus and reconsidered his style. It became even more subtle. When you see, "Angel," it's astonishing how subtle that film is. [McBride] It's, it's kind of his, "Belle de Jour," but, he got away with it, [McBride] ah, somehow, you know. And censors once said, "We know what he's saying. We don't know how he's saying it." [Laughter] [McBride] He was so subtle, you know. Yeah, but he would keep changing. But, you know, Billy Wilder told me in the Seventies, [McBride] He said, I don't think Lubitsch, ah, he said, I think Lubitsch would have a hard time in this market today. [McBride] And that was the Seventies you can imagine today. [Horak] Wilder was having a hard time. [McBride] Well, Wilder is trying to do Lubitschian films and he was having a hard time, [Horak] Right, but I was gonna you know, Lubitsch was also political in his life. I mean, he was one of the founders of the Hollywood Anti Nazi League. [McBride] Yeah. [Horak] And was actively engaged in that, [Horak] ah, until some friends told him there are too many communists in there and then he, then he kind of quietly got out of it. [Horak] But he was also a huge supporter of the European Film Fund, [Horak] which brought refugees, ah, most German-speaking Jewish filmmakers from Vienna and Berlin to Los Angeles and got them their first jobs, and he was [Horak] heavily invested in that, with his, financially too, so, [McBride] With Paul Kohner. [Horak and McBride talking at once] With Paul Kohner and William Dieterle, [Horak] So, [McBride] They all got people, they got a lot of people to contribute part of their weekly salary for this fund to support refugees. [McBride] Which was a very important thing to do and they saved a lot of people. And that was, that was his direct action, you know. [Horak] Yeah. [McBride] And so then, when he makes films like, "Ninotchka," and "To Be or Not to Be," there, you know, it's not a, [McBride] didn't, they didn't come out of nowhere. I mean, he really didn't like totalitarianism of any kind. [McBride] "Ninotchka," is one of the few anti-communist films, I would say, maybe the only one ever made in Hollywood, you can watch without embarrassment. [McBride] Ha! Because he really, um, [McBride] nailed Stalinism, at a time when a lot of people were acting blind toward Stalinism. He understood it. He was actually a Russian citizen, [McBride] early in life because his father was from Russia. And he avoided service in World War I because he was a Russian. [McBride] And um, so he knew Russia and he had been to Stalin's Russia and was appalled by, ah, things and he wrote that line in there, ah. [McBride] Ah, somebody said to Ninotchka, "How are things going in Russia?" She said, "Great. The last mass trials were a great success. [McBride] "They're gonna be fewer but better Russians." [McBride] He wrote that line himself, you know, so that's a very political line a very daring line for 1939. [Horak] Right here in the middle. [Audience member] Yes, I wanted to ask Nicola, what would you like us to know about your father? [Nicola] [Inaudible, off mic] It's a hard question. [Nicola] I don't even know really how to ask, how to answer that. [Nicola] I think he was a man of incredible taste. [Nicola] Of kindness and gentleness and warmth. A very private person. [Nicola] Um, things, here's an interesting aspect. Things meant absolutely nothing to him. [Nicola] Things in our house were bought by the secretary. He would say, go out and buy silver. [Nicola] He said to his chauffeur, go and buy a big black car, when the car broke down. [Nicola] So, as I watch, have watched his films over the year, and the more I think about it. [Nicola] It's extraordinary that a man that was so, [Nicola] invested in his films. In things and objects and, [Nicola] beautiful settings. [Nicola] Um. That didn't matter to him at all. He loved his house, but it was a very [Nicola] comfortable unostentatious Mexican house. [Nicola] Ah, with you know, [Nicola] very, I mean, it was beautiful, but it wasn't a Hollywood house at all. We didn't have a screening room. We didn't have, [Nicola] fish painted on the bottom of our swimming pool and we didn't have a slide with water coming down it. [Nicola] You know when I went to Jack Warner's with my friend Linda Leroy, [Nicola] um, when I was, [Nicola] Well, I couldn't believe it. I mean there was an octopus at the bottom of a pool and there were all these, [Nicola] fish and you went down this slide. It was absolutely terrifying. I mean, I just lived in an ordinary house. [Nicola] So I guess. Um. He didn't drive. [Nicola] He didn't run. He didn't know how to do anything. [Nicola] I mean, he really didn't. He didn't read music, but he played the piano. He was very, [Nicola] indulged by his family. He was the youngest of four. [Nicola] His uncle. I mean, his uncle. His oldest brother became a pediatrician. [Nicola] Um, his sister indulged him, was like a second mother to him, and would go to school with him. [Nicola] To change his shoes. So, when he went from gym to regular thing, he didn't know how to tie his shoelaces. I'm not making this up. I'm really not. [Nicola] Ah, my mother said once she asked him to pull the curtains and he broke them. He just pulled them down. [Laughter] [Nicola] So nobody ever asked him to do anything. [Laughter] [Nicola] Really. So, I guess he didn't like cheese so he never went in the kitchen and he wouldn't let my mother eat cheese. [Nicola] Seriously, so um, and he lived in his own world, you know. [Nicola] When he would come back from work, we would sit in his study and he would eat these horrible cookies that I had baked on my toy stove. [Laughter] [Nicola] That were like hard as bricks and we would listen, [Nicola] to, ah, quiz programs and try and guess, [Nicola] ah, you know what the answers were and they were awarding you silver dollars. [Laughter] [Nicola] He ate the same thing for breakfast every single day, prunes. [Laughter] [Nicola] Ah, and some kind of cereal and we had the same thing for lunch, cold cuts. And we had squab on Sundays. [Nicola] That's my father. He was a wonderful, wonderful father. [Applause]