July Special Subject – Duels in Max Ophüls – LIEBELEI (1933); LETTER FROM AN UNKOWN WOMAN (1948); and THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE… (1953)

Our Special Subject for this month, Duels in Max Ophüls, covers films from all three decades of the itinerant filmmaker's career: Liebelei (1933), made in Germany; Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), made in Hollywood; and Madame de... (1953), made in France. We consider the proposition that Ophüls' films are about superficially superficial people, and examine the evolution of a certain set of characters and scenarios in these three films dealing with the subject of tragic love and its (futile?) transformative effects.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:  LIEBELEI (1934) [dir. Max Ophüls] 0h 37m 18s:  LETTER FROM AN UNKOWN WOMAN (1948) [dir. Max Ophüls] 0h 59m 41s:  THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE… (1953) [dir. Max Ophüls]   +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again" * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at [email protected] We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!