The Marriage Circle (1924)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Starring: Marie Prevost, Adolphe Menjou, Florence Vidor, Monte Blue
Length: 85 min.
Genre: Romatic Comedy
Based On: The play "Nur ein Traum" (Only A Dream) written by Lothar Schmidt, adapted by Paul Bern
Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs
Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions
Our last stop in 1924 was a movie that made it onto my list at the last minute due to Adolphe Menjou's participation. After watching A Woman Of Paris, and finding out that Menjou became a star in large part because of that movie, I wanted to add another movie to the list that featured him. And so I added The Marriage Circle to my list. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much.
Mizzi (Marie Prevost) is married to Josef Stock (Adolphe Menjou), but the marriage has soured and is now completely love-less. He best friend, Charlotte (Florence Vidro) had just gotten married to a doctor, Franz Braun (Monte Blue). Mizzi becomes taken with Franz and moves in for the kill.
Franz is quite taken with Mizzi at first as well. The two start an affair (kissing during that time would probably equate sex in our's). Josef, however, has hired a private detective to follow Mizzi. He's hoping she has an affair because he wants out of the marriage. One other wrench thrown in is that Franz's partner is in love with Franz's new wife, Charlotte.
What follows is a pretty funny comedy. Adolphe Menjou, after a good dramatic performance in A Woman Of Paris, delivers with a very good comedic performance in this movie. He seems to be able to do both very well, and I'll have to see about adding more his movies to my list (looking at his list of movies in imdb.com, it seems he was workhorse starring in a lot of movies).
Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 7/10