Cluny Brown (1946), dir. Ernst Lubitsch. Blu-ray at the Trylon microcinema, Wednesday, May 31.

To celebrate my 55th birthday, I decided to rent the Trylon microcinema and screen Cluny Brown to a crowd of friends. I was going to say “delighted friends”, because it was my hope-against-hope that the crowd would be delighted, as I was. But I’ve screened it before to friends, with mixed results. But it was my birthday, I paid for the place and so beggars can’t be choosers, right?

Well, my fears were unfounded, as either everyone was the greatest and most effective liars around, but peeps loved them the Cluny. And I loved it even more because Lubitsch’s style shone with a crowd of people. I remember reading how a lot of the screwball writers penned their dialogue with supposedly “wasted” words, which needed to be effective in terms of character and plot, but could also be missed in case the audience was roaring with laughter. Which they were, and that style worked perfectly. Scenes I hadn’t noticed were funny were hilarious and afterwards there was a real surge of happiness.

The only thing greater would have been to see it on 35mm, projected by me. I miss projecting terribly, but it’s unlikely that’ll ever happen again, so I’ll have to be content with my memories. Now, one of my great memories is seeing Cluny Brown, lovingly projected on digital by the Trylon staff–see post-it above (if you’ve watched a screening at a theater that doesn’t care, like the Parkway, it’s really annoying)–and with a crowd of friends chomping cookies and laughing at “Tempora certainly do mutantur!” Splendid.