Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise is a frothy confection, a cinematic souffle that rises triumphantly above the flat, grey look of its early-30s origins. The story of ritzy jewel thieves Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins scheming to bilk French cosmetics heiress Kay Francis out of the bulk of her negotiable possessions, it proceeds with aristocratic aplomb.
Both Marshall and Hopkins could prove tediously brittle and a bit stale in later movies that relaxed into a more casual American style. Here, their mannered elocution and studied stage-business come off elegantly (this is, after all, a comedy of manners). Charlie Ruggles and Edward Everett Horton, a couple of fussbudgets wooing Francis, ably hold up the periphery of the action.
Trouble in Paradise -- a de luxe, Art Deco paradise -- stands as the touchstone of the fabled "Lubitsch touch," that glancing, faintly suggestive command of nuance, such as a pair of shadows falling across a bedspread (no more need be said, or shown). In this comic operetta, even the blithe background music sings out in leitmotifs. Other emigres from middle Europe brought a foreboding Teutonic look and tone to Hollywood, especially to film noir. Lubitsch brough a frolicsome continental note more akin to Mozart and Schubert than to Wagner or Mahler. This is an irrepressible smile of a movie.
Both Marshall and Hopkins could prove tediously brittle and a bit stale in later movies that relaxed into a more casual American style. Here, their mannered elocution and studied stage-business come off elegantly (this is, after all, a comedy of manners). Charlie Ruggles and Edward Everett Horton, a couple of fussbudgets wooing Francis, ably hold up the periphery of the action.
Trouble in Paradise -- a de luxe, Art Deco paradise -- stands as the touchstone of the fabled "Lubitsch touch," that glancing, faintly suggestive command of nuance, such as a pair of shadows falling across a bedspread (no more need be said, or shown). In this comic operetta, even the blithe background music sings out in leitmotifs. Other emigres from middle Europe brought a foreboding Teutonic look and tone to Hollywood, especially to film noir. Lubitsch brough a frolicsome continental note more akin to Mozart and Schubert than to Wagner or Mahler. This is an irrepressible smile of a movie.