The Oyster Princess

http://pics.livejournal.com/mediadiary/pic/003dkfr7

I read a brief CD-review in the New York Times. I've seen highly recommended Ernst Lubitsch comedies and have felt non-plused--I must not have gotten their rhythm--but I loved this early movie of his. It was so zany, so like the cartoons I remember from my youth (probably also the product of Eastern Europeans, only ones who had come to America), so giddily exuberant. Marx brothers movies have a similar, almost apocalyptic zaniness and subversiveness vis a vis the politically-controlling class. I notice about myself that if there's a compelling central female figure and/or a love story I am much more open to silliness than if there isn't.