It took nine tailors (1948)

18: Hollywood Pluck [N Hollywood all rumors are streamlined for speed. When Mr. Zukor used to sneeze on the Paramount lot, Mr. Ince would know about it at Metro before you could tie your shoelace. Even before I knew that I was going to be a hit in Chaplin's new picture all the casting directors had heard that I would be. So after completing A Woman of Paris I had no trouble getting jobs. I did four pictures in the latter half of 1923. Three of them were very large cuts of Gorgonzola— The Spanish Dancer and Shadows of Paris with Pola Negri and The Marriage Cheat with Leatrice Joy, who later married John Gilbert. But the fourth, The Marriage Circle, was good. It was a delight to work in, and it was a smash hit at the box office. In the cast of The Marriage Circle were Marie Prevost, Florence Vidor, and Monte Blue. Ernst Lubitsch was the director. They say that he was influenced by Chaplin's direction of A Woman of Paris, but I doubt this because the latter film had not yet been released; however, he may have seen it at a private showing before release. But inevitably the two pictures were compared by all reviewers, and they were both on all lists of the year's best pictures, which included Erich von Stroheim's Foolish Wives, Cecil B. De Mille's The Ten Commandments, Robin Hood, starring Doug Fairbanks, Safety Last, Harold Lloyd's best-remembered film, and The Green Goddess with George Arliss. Lubitsch, as a director, had the same regard for realistic and subtle touches as Chaplin, but his methods were entirely different. Lubitsch planned everything very carefully in advance; he knew the content of every scene before he began shooting, and he acted 135