Professor Stock (Adolph Menjou) and wife Mizzi (Marie Provost) have reached an impasse in their marriage and he wants out. Mizzi's best friend Charlotte ( Florence Vidor ) is blissfully married to Dr. Charles Braun (Monte Blue). His partner Dr. Mueller (Creighton Hale) has designs on Charlotte who has no interest. When Mizzi sets her sights on Dr. Braun suspicions, stoked by misinterpretation and the diabolical Mizzi arise and accusations fly.The Marriage Circle is an excellent comedy of errors from the Silent Era featuring the wit and sophistication of Ernst Lubitsch that would go on to brilliantly inform some of the finest adult comedies before and after sound and code enforcement. Here he breezily unfolds his story with a benign amorality and suspense as his quintet of characters all share a little guilt and selfishness. Vidor is a beauty and paragon of virtue to behold but capable of being petty. Blue and Hale comically pine and mope while Menjou is pure dinner at eight collected. Acting honors however belong to Provost's Mizzi whose side glances and brashness haul the rest of the characters into the circle. The Marriage Circle is an outstanding example of silent film comedy and in large contrast to the slapstick that still dominated. Doors are closed, not slammed or run through, the humor is sly not pie in the face. Lubitsch conveys it beautifully here as he would into sound as well as influence a generation of filmmakers.

007: Marriage Circle (1924) - released 2/10/1924, viewed 7/27/05.Vladimir Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin begins his bid for leadership of Soviet Russia. The 1924 Winter Olympics commence in Chamonix, France. Petrograd is renamed Leningrad. The U.N. recognizes the Soviet Union. Mohandes Gandhi is released from prison on medical grounds. The gas chamber used for the first time in an execution in Nevada.BIRTHS: Sabu Dastagir. DEATHS: Vladimir Lenin, Woodrow Wilson.KEVIN: We now come to a more unusual entry, a silent sex comedy from a soon-to-be-renowned German filmmaker. I didn't know what to expect from Ernst Lubitsch's Marriage Circle. As it turned out, I enjoyed it very much. Each scene seemed funnier and more engaging than the last. I loved the characters, and I was intrigued by the way the film was performed. Although it was probably done often, it seems like it'd be difficult to adapt a stage play, full of spoken dialogue, to the silent screen. But this one does it wonderfully. The actors all do an excellent job of expressing every emotion and nearly every word without us being able to hear them at all, and with very few title cards necessary. We've got plenty more Lubitsch films further along in the sound era, and I'm looking forward to watching them all.DOUG: I must be honest, I didn't think a comedy like this could possibly work as a silent film. There's not a lot of action happening like with Keaton or Chaplin. There are plenty of characters interacting and bickering. I had suspected that this started out as a play before making the leap to film, and this at a time when film and stage were even more different than they are now. With the dialogue cards only revealing the most essential lines, the actors have to absolutely sell it. And they do. It took me a little while to figure out exactly who was who and what everyone was doing, but once I got it, the movie was a lot of fun. There are a lot of good twists and turns that manage to work despite the lack of sound; When Charlotte suspects her husband Franz is having an affair, she enlists her best friend Mizzi to watch him at a party, unaware that it is in fact Mizzi that Franz is having the affair with. We had a lot of fun filling in the dialogue ourselves, and it is never hard to understand what the characters are thinking.Last film: Our Hospitality (1923). Next film: The Thief of Bagdhad (1924).The Movie Odyssey is an exhaustive, chronological project where we watch as many milestone films as possible, starting with D.W. Griffith's Intolerance in 1916 and working our way through, year by year, one film at a time. We also write a short review for each and every film. In this project, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of the time period, the films of the era, and each film in context, while at the same time just watching a lot of great movies, most of which we never would have watched otherwise.

A superb, honest, tender romantic comedy of manners, which features acting today's performers would be hard to match. You can laugh and feel for these characters. Ernst Lubitsch's smart direction keeps the movie always interesting, never dated."The Marriage Circle" should be required viewing for today's filmmakers. They'd learn how to reveal characters in emotionally complicated situations with minimum dialogue. And how to tell a story with minimum dialogue. And be funny.

This was Lubitsch's first film for Paramount following Rosita with Mary Pickford and sees him in transcendent form.A highly sophisticated comedy set in Vienna (possibly to allow for the outrageous conduct of the characters)and rich in complex farce scenarios and intelligent narrative twists played by an excellent cast.Marie Prevost is extraordinary as the relentless pursuer of the happily married Dr Franz Braum, happily married that is to her best friend played by Florence Vidor. Adolphe Menjou offers a characteristically fine performance as the betrayed husband seeking divorce from his wayward wife. His expressions are hysterical as he reveals his caustic feelings towards his spouse. This film explores issues of marriage, commitment, fidelity and temptation in the Lubitsch style. A very funny, touching comedy that displays Lubitsch's talent for understated sophisticated comedy. This stands alongside some of his best films such as The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not to be as an equal.