Billy Wilder, by way of dubious compliment, says of the master of early humane comedy: “Ernst Lubitsch, who could do more with a closed door than most of today’s directors can do with an open fly, would have had big problems in this market.” [i] The time was 1975 and Wilder’s observation betrays his concealed repugnance at the contemporary film scene. As is natural to the law of history, the past decays and whatever that has been salvaged from complete obliteration is bound to seem a little peculiar to the posterity. Wilder in the 1970s was coming to terms - although not without certain resentment - with the expected depletion of creative ideas brought on by old age and a growing sense of alienation from the prevailing cultural climate. Lubitsch, on the other hand, had his name and legacy established but his films in a steady process of obsolescence. There is a misplaced tendency nowadays to view those films, which enjoy a resurgence of interest, as lighthearted and slightly whims