One Hour With You

Directed first by Cukor under Lubitsch's supervision, and then largely re-shot by the latter, this is in many ways a typical piece of sophisticated, smug fluff from Lubitsch and his regular screenwriter Samson Raphaelson. A remake of the 1924 The Marriage Circle, it presents Chevalier as a philandering Paris doctor, flaunting his thick-accented charm at MacDonald. Songs, verse, snappy dialogue, and asides to the audience make it likeable and clever. But Cukor, interviewed about the film's authorship, put his finger on its problem: 'It's really a Lubitsch picture, and if you think you can detect what I did in it, you're imagining things. Lubitsch's pictures were brilliant, even if they lacked feeling. He didn't want his comedies to have any feeling. Now, my idea of comedy is that they should always touch you unexpectedly.'