It's the End of the Song

Already in 1982, at a conference on Early German Cinema, ¹ Barry Salt drew attention to the fact that many of Ernst Lubitsch's German films were either directly based on or were inspired by operettas. ² Implicit was the suggestion that this popular form of musical comedy had been a seriously underrated factor in the development of Lubitsch's style, carrying over into his American work. Since then, it has become almost self-evident that Weimar cinema as a whole cannot be understood without a knowledge of the forms of popular music drama and musical entertainment that were prevalent at the time. The re-evaluation of the role of sound in so-called silent cinema has furthermore provided a more historically informed account when discussing film music and its genres. For German cinema, for example, it is necessary to distinguish between filmed operettas and operetta films, between musical films and revue films and between musical comedies and films containing popular music. ³