Ernst Lubitsch’s 1925 Hollywood version of Lady Windermere’s Fan is often misquoted as the first screen adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s enduringly popular 1892 play. In fact, the British got there first, with this early silent feature made nearly a decade before Lubitsch’s film. While the lack of actual dialogue may seem an affront to the Wildean cause, the pointed retorts and tortuous Victorian social mores of the source material are brought to life by a suitably overwrought cast and a smattering of spiky intertitles.
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