Trouble in Paradise

(Ernst Lubitsch, US 1932, 83 min., 35mm)

Playboy/thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meets expert pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins) on the Riviera, and they, of course, fall in love. Initially, they try to steal from each other—a kind of foreplay among thieves—before realizing their mutual interests make them a perfect team. In Paris, Gaston gets a job as personal secretary to the wealthy heiress to a perfume company, Madame Mariette Colet (Kay Francis), hiring Lily as maid, so they can rob her blind. This movie is certainly one of the most delightfully ironic of Lubitsch’s pre-Code romantic comedies.