Ernst Lubitsch
January 28, 1892 – November 30, 1947“I still remember the day of the funeral. After the ceremony, William Wyler and I walked silently to our cars. Finally I said, just to say something to break the silence, ‘No more Lubitsch.’ To which Wyler replied, ‘Worse than that—no more Lubitsch films.’ How right we were. For twenty years since then we all tried to find the secret of the ‘Lubitsch touch.’ Nothing doing. Oh, if we were lucky, we sometimes managed a few feet of film here and there in our work that momentarily sparkled like Lubitsch. Like Lubitsch, not real Lubitsch. His art is lost. That most elegant of screen magicians took his secret with him.” — Billy Wilder