The Doll (1919)

(On Cable TV, September 2022) The more I dig into film history, the more I realize that there’s never anything really new. Sometimes, the precedent is much, much older than expected. Take, for instance, 1919’s The Doll, from the endlessly-talented writer-director Ernst Lubitsch (who also shows up on-screen at the very start of the film to literally “build” the world in which the film takes place). Those who know about the Lubitsch touch know how he was able to blend humour, romance and a strong dash of naughtiness that never became vulgar. So, what’s the link with modern times, here? Well, the film is about a man refusing marriage, instead opting to… buy a life-size clockwork doll for companionship. That’s right: 1919, and movie audiences were already watching naughty sex-bot comedies. The human race is truly remarkable. (The title card, translated/restored sometime since then, even specifies that the dolls are intended to be sold “to bachelors, widowers, and misogynists!”)  Anyway—the big joke here is that the doll isn’t a doll, but the dollmaker’s real-life daughter trying to cover for a mechanical malfunction. There are many of the now-familiar complications in confusing the biological for the mechanical (or vice-versa), but don’t fret: there’s authentic romance building throughout The Doll, and at a spry 57 minutes there isn’t much time to be bored. Lubitsch fans probably see this film with high expectations, but it meets all of them, even as a silent, technically-ambitious-but-rough early film. Much of the plotting would feel right at ease in a modern Silicon Valley AI romantic comedy, and that’s eloquent enough.