Review of Romeo and Juliet in the Snow

"Romeo und Julia im Schnee" or "Romeo and Juliet in the Snow" is a 45-minute movie from Germany and as it is from 1920, it will soon have its 100th anniversary. It is one of the earlier career works of German filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch and he was not even 30 when he made this one. But he was already collaborating with Hanns Kräly, a writer with whom Lubitsch worked together for a long time and this collaboration also resulted in an Oscar for Kräly later in his career, something Lubitsch himself never achieved. The title here gives away already that this is Lubitsch's take on the famous Shakespeare play about Romeo and Juliet and as Lubistch was mostly doing comedy in his early years, this one here is no exception. The names Capulethofer and Montekugerl already give away that the film does not take itself seriously at all. Oh yeah, I forgot, looking at this film's age, it is of course a silent black-and-white film, also like most other early works by Lubitsch. If you are a huge silent film buff, then a few of the names may seem familiar to you, but to general audiences (like myself) I am afraid most (or all) of the names in here have long been forgotten. And unfortunately I must say this film here does not really justify them to be remembered. I found it a fairly uninteresting watch and eventually I was glad it only runs for half of the usual feature film runtime. The attempts at comedy stayed attempts most of the time and were successful very rarely only. I don't think Shakespeare would have likes Lubitsch's approach. Thumbs down from me.