The final stop on our Hollywood pre-Code community cruise lands us in Lubitsch-land. That’s director Ernst Lubitsch and his sublime sex comedy, Trouble in Paradise. Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins play lovers and thieves attempting to fleece the chic owner of a French perfume company, played by Kay Francis. What ensues is a sort-of modern ménage à trois in the most elegant, innuendo indulgent film comedy of all time. For his pre-screening talk, Michael van den Bos discusses the “Lubitsch Touch” in the director’s approach to sex on screen and his suggestive visual flair, and an appreciation for the beguiling actresses Miriam Hopkins and Kay Francis.
When I was small I liked to go to the movies because you could find out what adults did when there weren’t any children in the room. Trouble in Paradise reawakened my old feeling. It is about people who are almost impossibly adult, in that fanciful movie way — so suave, cynical, sophisticated, smooth and sure that a lifetime is hardly long enough to achieve such polish. They glide.
Roger Ebert
This comedy of jewel thieves is itself the prize sparkler of Lubitsch’s enterprising career.
J Hoberman, Village Voice
Steeped in sex.
The Rough Guide to Film
2:00 pm
2:30 pm
Michael van den Bos
Ernst Lubitsch
Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charles Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton
USA
1932
English
Book Tickets
Monday May 12
Indigenous & Community Access
Credits
Screenwriter
Samson Raphaelson
Cinematography
Victor Milner
Art Director
Hans Dreier
Also in This Series
SIN! SEX! SHOCK! SCANDAL! Welcome to the sordid cinema of Pre-Code Hollywood! Classic film scholar Michael van den Bos is your tour guide on a 5-part trek through the seamier, steamier and sinister side of Hollywood movies from the early 1930s.
Baby Face
In the first of our new five-week Film Studies course exploring the notorious pre-censorship era of American cinema, Michael van den Bos introduces the 1933 shocker Baby Face, with Barbara Stanwyck sleeping her way up the corporate ladder.
Red-Headed Woman
The second stop on our tour of Hollywood's pre-Code naughty neighbourhood is a racy rendezvous with Jean Harlow as the lustfully liberated "Red" who turns on her titillating allure for advancement in upper society. Introduced by Michael van den Bos.
Freaks
Beautiful circus trapeze artiste Cleopatra likes to flirt with one of the sideshow attractions, Hans, a dwarf. When she learns that Hans is a wealthy man she decides to marry him. It's a choice she will live to regret... An unforgettable 1932 shocker.
Trouble in Paradise
Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins play lovers and thieves attempting to fleece the chic owner of a French perfume company, played by Kay Francis. What ensues is a modern ménage à trois in the most elegant, innuendo filled film comedy of all time.