Broken Lullaby

Outside of the over the top performance of Phillips Holmes, there is a lot to like here throughout the bulk of the film. Lubitsch smartly sidelines Holmes in the last act, throwing the weight of the action to the German family. However, the narrative resolve leaves me wanting, especially for truth. There's a fundamental falsehood (which is written into the story) that I think is morally compromised. The filmmakers' hearts are in the right place here, but the story gets written into a corner.

Odd material from Lubitsch, with a melodrama that isn't bad and has a fairly interesting premise but is let down by a poor over the top performance from Holmes. I'm not 100% sure how I felt about the actions therein. There's some complexity as to whether he's doing the right thing or not in the end. It's interesting to see Lubitsch outside his comfort zone, but it was just okay for me.

An awkward film which starts to feel like German propaganda in the first few minutes. It also doesn't seem like the premise -- a guy goes to the enemy country to apologize for killing -- can really hold an 80-minute movie (and, at times, the pace is very slow). There are some great sequences here (the town gossips, the beer hall speech), but I don't think the filmmakers quite knew what message they wanted to send and wound up chucking everything in, hoping something would resonate.

Although the premise is fresh and the story promising, there's too much corny baggage to get past.

Viewed June 19, 2020. The funereal tone meshes surprisingly well with Lubitsch's masterful direction; the technique is the same, but the feel is different. A fascinating anomaly in this great director's body of work.

Star Rating: ★★★

This is a very interesting serious film from Ernst Lubitsch. A totally serious Phillips Holmes does well as the soldier with the demons and few can play a warming old man like Lionel Barrymore can. Nancy Carroll is cute and together they make the town talk and the movie viewer feel good. Lubitsch escape the difficult situations with the story but there is still a lot of little moments of emotion and suspense of what is right and wrong with a predicament where a killer visits his victims family.