Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Madame Dubarry [Passion] (1919)

This historical drama, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, stars Pola Negri and Emil Jannings, with Harry Liedtke, Reinhold Schünzel, Eduard von Winterstein, Else Berna, Fred Immler, Gustav Czimeg and Karl Platen.

Young hat milliner Jeanne Vaubernier (Negri) loves the young student Armand de Foix (Liedtke). An accident brings together Jeanne and Don Diego, the Spanish ambassador to France (Magnus Stifter). In the first of a series of betrayals (although a minor one), Jeanne opts to visit Diego on an arranged Sunday date instead of being with Armand. During this visit, Jeanne meets Count Dubarry (von Winterstein) for the first time. Dubarry attempts to tap Diego to pay a debt for him and is refused.

A note from Jeanne asks Armand to see her at an event at the opera (which is conducted more like an orgy), which he does and is striken with a blinded bout of jealousy culminating in a brief sword fight and the murder of Diego. Armand is arrested and Jeanne swept away by Dubarry.

Abruptly, Dubarry proposes that Jeanne be the mistress of his house but he hides his motive behind the offer: to entreat her to seduce someone into paying his debt. Her first target is Minister Choiseul (Schünzel), who is not tempted and refuses. However, on a chance encounter, Jeanne catches the eye of King Louis XV (Jannings) and the plan is then for her to become the King’s mistress and coax him into paying the debt. He does and she does.

Meanwhile, Armand is in prison and has been sentenced to death. Jeanne discovers the death warrant and convinces the king to pardon Armand. Choiseul and the queen plot to undermine Jeanne’s favor with the king, arranging to have a mocking song spread among the populace intended to turn them against Jeanne and the king himself. The king maneuvers around this by announcing his intention to introduce Jeanne at court as his official mistress, legitimizing her presence. Social climber that she is, Jeanne favors the plan but she must first have a noble title which requires marrying an aristocrat, ultimately Count Dubarry’s wastrel brother Count Wilhelm Dubarry (Platen).

Armand has found employment as a soldier in the palace guard and Jeanne, now the Countess Dubarry (“the most powerful woman in France”), arranges for him to be promoted to lieutenant.

Through the machinations of the queen and Choiseul, the people of Paris protest the king’s favor of the low-born Madame Dubarry, which (we surmise) inadvertently sows the seeds of the French Revolution. Despite his favored position, Armand sees how a poison has been introduced into the body of France. His feelings for her betrayed, Armand hates Jeanne for what she has allowed herself to become.

Armand rejects the favors he now despises and aligns himself with the coming Revolution. Taxes and inflation are throttling the people and trouble foments quickly. Informed of a secret meeting to plot against the Countess Dubarry, Jeanne disguises herself to infiltrate the meeting and is stunned to learn of Armand’s betrayal of her.

Nothing now can be done to save Dubarry from destruction except to pray for the king’s recovery from a sudden case of small pox. No such luck as the king has died and Dubarry is cast out of the palace by decree of the new king. The streets are broiling with revolution. Another betrayal comes to Dubarry as a former devoted servant informs as to her hiding place. Dubarry is brought before a tribunal led by none other than Armand, who reluctantly condemns her to death in the last betrayal.

While at times over the top, Pola Negri and Harry Liedtke perform their parts with conviction. Emil Jannings is quirky (as usual) as the distracted king. Lubitsch’s direction is masterful and inventive, and he smoothly pivots from an early comic tone in the film to pitched tragedy.

Here’s a continuity gaff for those who look for those things: The hat box that Jeanne carries while visiting Armand in his apartment is painted with black diamonds yet, after it is trampled by Don Diego’s horse, the damaged box examined by Madame Labille is painted with black four and six-pointed stars.

We amusedly note that Reinhold Schünzel bears some resemblance to Rowan Atkinson and his comic character, Mr. Bean. (No significance here, just noted to perhaps coax a smile.)

— Carl Bennett

This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from a high-definition scan of an archival film materials held by Cinémathèque Suisse and Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, mainly a 35mm Swiss print with German and French intertitles, as restored by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung. The source material has a minimum of faults, including moderate amounts of dust and speckling, vertical scrapes and scratches, splices, and other print flaws. The occasional frame jitters appear to be in the camera negative than than in the release print since one shot will slightly jiggle about the frame and the subsequent shot will be nearly rock solid. A brief section of missing footage has been inserted from a good but dupey print.

The film is accompanied by a sparkling music score composed by Carsten-Stephen Graf von Bothmer and performed by the Brauschweig State Orchestra directed by Burkhard Bauche.

Supplemental material includes audio commentary by author and film historian Joseph McBride, author of How Did Lubitsch Do It? As always, McBride’s information and insights are valuable to the knowledge-hungry cineaste.

This is our recommended North American home video edition of the film.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region A Blu-ray Disc edition is also available directly from . . .

The DVD (which is progressive scan encoded) looks nearly as good as the Blu-ray Disc; only the lower-resolution of DVD reveals any compromises. On HD systems capable of resolution upscaling these very minor issues disappear except for the ragged resolution of the subtitles type (which is always an issue with DVD).

The film is accompanied by a sparkling music score composed by Carsten-Stephen Graf von Bothmer and performed by the Brauschweig State Orchestra directed by Burkhard Bauche.

The supplemental material includes a 36-page booklet with essays by critic and filmmaker David Cairns and archival photos. The short Lubitsch comedy Als Ich Tot War (1916) rounds out the additional material. The film has been scanned from an excellent 35mm print with some print wear, dust and speckling, and is accompanied by an entertaining music score performed by a piano and violin.

This edition is highly recommended for European collectors. North American collectors will need a region-free Blu-ray Disc player and/or a region-free PAL DVD player capable of outputting an NTSC-compatible signal to view this edition.

United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region B Blu-ray Disc / Region 2 DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk.

This DVD-R edition from public-domain home video company Grapevine Video has been transferred from a good to very-good 16mm reduction print of the American release version, Passion. The disc has been mastered from an older full-frame video transfer on analog videotape, as evidenced by characteristic dark smears to the right of the intertitles type and other analog videotape anomalies. The source print is contrasty, with OK highlights detail but also with some closed shadows.

The film is accompanied by a music score performed on electric organ that sounds like it might be the work of Bob Vaughn.

Not recommended. This edition is perhaps only valuable as a record of the American release version of the film.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .

Other silent era POLA NEGRI films available on home video.

Other silent era EMIL JANNINGS films available on home video.