Chained to the Cinémathèque: Criterion Collection

07 août 2007

Pure Speculation

Frequently, the Criterion Collection newsletter posts hints as to upcoming releases. It's where I've gotten recent anouncements that you see in this space - by solving the (relatively easy) riddles as to upcoming discs. It's never posed as a riddle, but rather as a picture with text, and no indication that it hints at what's to come.

Today's edition had the following picture:

Obviously it's a film starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald... but which one(s)? They made 4 films together; Love Me Tonight (Rouben Mamoulian, 1932) is currently on Kino dvd, so that's out. The options:

The Merry Widow (Ernst Lubitsch, 1934)
The Love Parade (Ernst Lubitsch, 1929)
One Hour with You (George Cukor and Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)

The only problem is, I can't recall a raccoon's relevance in any of these. Perhaps it's related to the dog-in-the-courtroom from The Merry Widow? The Merry Widow is one of Lubitsch's best, and previously unavailable on dvd, though the same could be said for The Love Parade (and maybe even One Hour With You). Perhaps we'll get lucky and we'll get a Lubitsch musical box?