Trouble in Paradise (1932)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Trouble in Paradise (1932) – E. Lubitsch

Sophisticated (but often naughty) comedy from Ernst Lubitsch (yes, with the Lubitsch touch).  Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins are two thieves (con-persons?) who fall in love and team up to swindle perfume magnate Kay Francis.  Of course, there are complications when Francis falls in love with Marshall (and vice versa?).  Lubitsch populates the film with well-known character actors of the period:  Charlie Ruggles and Edward Everett Horton play other suitors for Francis and C. Aubrey Smith is the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Francis’s company.  How everyone’s plans ravel and unravel is simply delicious and I wouldn’t want to spoil it here.  The three leads (and everyone else) generally underplay, letting the script do the work. And, as always, Lubitsch leaves a lot of innuendo hanging in the air to tickle your adult fancy (enough innuendo so that the film was effectively banned when the Hays Code was enforced beginning in 1934).  Of course, we get the ending that we deserve…