Trouble in Paradise - Criterion Collection

Media:	DVD
Directed by:	Ernst Lubitsch
Starring:	Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall
Release date:	07 January, 2003
List price:	~~$39.95~~
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Trouble in Paradise - Criterion Collection

Average rating: Stars

Trouble in Paradise

Gentleman thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall), gentlewoman thief Lily (Miriam Hopkins) and perfume heiress Madame Mariette Colet (Kay Francis) comprise an elegant romantic triangle in a tale of amour and larceny.
They don't make `em like Ernst Lubitsch's TROUBLE IN PARADISE anymore. The characters are refined and decorous, the script is sophisticated and witty, the movie is made by adults for other, intelligent adults. To paraphrase Peter Bogdanovich in his introduction - How far we have fallen! Watch, listen and read all the extras on this dvd and you too will mourn the passing of the `Lubitsch touch,' even if you're like me and still are a little unclear what exactly the `Lubitsch touch' is. Perhaps Lubitsch was a recognized auteur before there was an auteur theory. In any event, TROUBLE IN PARADISE is a (very good) cocktail-at-the-Ritz movie, and should be seen by anyone who appreciates old movies.
Also on the dvd is DAS FIDELE GEFÃ„NGNIS (THE MERRY JAIL) 1917, a silent film Lubitsch that must have been made before he was a genius. It's about a drunken wastrel of a husband who is summoned to spend a night in jail. Instead, he attends a party where his disguised wife plays a trick or two on him. Meanwhile one of the wife's suitors, through a series of events not worth relating, spends the night in jail in the husband's stead. The oddest character in this odd and vaguely offensive movie is the jail warder, played by Emil Jannings, whose character is potted throughout the film and spends a fair amount of time kissing and making passes at the male inmates.
The 1940 Screen Guild Theater program is a little more refreshing, especially if you're a fan of Jack Benny, who dominates the proceedings. Lubitsch plays himself in the program, as do the others - Claudette Colbert, Basil Rathbone, and Benny.

Trouble in Paradise - Criterion Collection - Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis and more

The Meaning of Jewels

I must admit, Trouble in Paradise is my first Lubitsch. Herbert Marshal plays a very suave thief predating Hitchcock's, To Catch a Thief, the Cary Grant take on Marshall's roll. Now Miriam Hopkins is an American that seems to be as suave as Marshal when she needs to impersonate a countess. They meet and discover their talents as thieves and this gets them very excited sexually.

Kay Francis, the dark haired beauty plays the rich Mariette Colet, and becomes a target of Marshal and Hopkins. While Marshal befriends Francis as a secretary, the boss-employee relationship becomes elegantly steamy. This kind of elegant love game was the height of sophistication among the very wealthy of the period. Jewels and pearls are both symbols of the desired object and perhaps bedroom toys.

This film was made in 1932 just before The Code was established. For this reason, the film nearly disappeared because the triangle between two very different women and a sophisticated rogue dramatizes clearly: they wanted to have sex with each other. Although there is no nudity, and the lovers are not shown in bed together, Lubitsch has given the film a Continental, an open sexuality, that early talkies had difficulty doing because of the puritan code in the religious United States in the 30's. Lubitsch has invented the sex comedy for talkies. Every director is indebted to him.

Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis and more - Trouble in Paradise - Criterion Collection

A film that boosted Hollywood to the top

This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

Ernst Lubitsch's "Trouble in Paradise" remains one of his best known films. Lubitsch has been credited by many as bringing Hollywood into the international spotlight and paving the way for major blockbusters like "Gone with the Wind."

It was made before the Hays Production Code went into effect and therefore could not be re-released for a long time.

The film to me seems like a possible inspiration for "Bonnie and Clyde" due to a similar plot. in the film, two thieves meet each other and fall in love. They join forces attempt to knock off a perfume company. Later the man finds himself attracted to the woman who runs the comapny and rethinks here his loyalties are.

The film has some risque scenes which could be considered indecent by the standards of the time of it was released. Though today it would probably be somewhere between G and PG.

The DVD has some great special features including one of Lubitsch's short films from the year 1917 Das fidele GefÃ¤ngnis (The Merry Jail)
There are also tribites to Lubitsch by many big nams in Hollywood including Leonard Maltin, Roger Ebert, Billy Wilder and many others. There is audio commentary by Scott Eyman who wrote a biography on Lubitsch. There is an intorduction tothe film presented by Peter Bogdanovich and a 1940 Screen Guild Theater radio program based on the film.
This one, while not a must-see is still one that man will like