THE CLERK (dir. Ernst Lubitsch, starring Charles Laughton) 1932
included on Criterion’s recent dvd & blu-ray of DESIGN FOR LIVING, this teeny, single-serving short film was Lubitsch’s contribution to an omnibus film called If I Had A Million, which concerns a dying rich dude and the random saps to whom he gives all of his money. watching this silly little short on the Blu-ray, I couldn’t help but think that this clip would have been been a huge viral hit had the web been around some 80 years ago, and so i wasn’t all that surprised to find it on YouTube, sitting there with a whopping… 3,000 hits.
anyway, it’s a right bit of fun for your friday. keep an eye out for my woefully belated DESIGN FOR LIVING review, which should be up… sometime.
p.s. every time i think of “The Lubitsch Touch,” i like to think that this was his theme song. ya know, what he’d listen to when he needed to get all pumped up in the morning.
