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Miriam Hopkins Learns to Wink

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

The art of the wink encapsulates and epitomizes Miriam Hopkins’s comedic skill, a virtuosity that proved of singular importance in Lubitsch’s transition from the gestural language of silent films to the vociferous ideologies of talking pictures. In three successive, increasingly inventive, morally adventurous f ilms-The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), Trouble in Paradise (1932), and Design for Living (1933)-Hopkins modernized Lubitsch’s Old World sophistication in physically and vocally inflected performances that announced a new comic figure: the woman who winks, we might call this screen avatar of openly desirous, exuberantly modern, morally reckless (even cheerfully larcenous!) womanhood.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationNew Approaches to Ernst Lubitsch
Subtitle of host publicationA Light Touch
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages161-176
Number of pages16
ISBN (Electronic)9781040795453
ISBN (Print)9789463729895
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2025

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Arts and Humanities
  • General Social Sciences

Keywords

  • caricature
  • cash
  • impersonation
  • law of thirds
  • sexual triangle
  • Woman who winks

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