Pariah Humour: Ernst Lubitsch’s Refugee Comedies

This chapter analyses To Be or Not to Be (1942) and Cluny Brown (1946) as “refugee comedies” that foreground displacement, unbelonging, and cultural estrangement through Lubitsch’s signature comedic style. Drawing on exile theory and émigré studies, the chapter considers how Lubitsch’s Jewish and transnational identity informs his representation of borders, bureaucracies, and social absurdity. It argues that these comedies use humor to process the trauma of statelessness and fascism, offering moments of ludic resistance amid historical catastrophe. The figure of the outsider—whether a Polish actor impersonating Hitler or a British plumber misunderstood as a revolutionary—becomes central to Lubitsch’s ethical and political imagination. The chapter situates Lubitsch’s refugee comedies within a broader discourse on exile cinema, affect, and the politics of laughter.