Kay Francis' diamonds: Jewel Robbery (1932) and Trouble in Paradise (1932)

In 1932, Kay Francis twice got her jewels stolen by very skilled thieves. First, William Powell took her new diamond ring in “Jewel Robbery”; then Herbert Marshall took her new diamond purse in Lubitsch's “Trouble in Paradise”. In both instances, the thieves returned the stolen item and return for her. I have now watched both films three times over the last 18 months or so, the last time as a double bill at the BFI. So I have decided to write about them together as well.

“Trouble in Paradise” is one Ernst Lubitsch's most famous titles. Along with Francis, it stars Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins as the duo intent in stealing as much as possible from Francis' Madame Colet, a widow who owns a perfume company. William Dieterle's “Jewel Robbery” co-stars William Powell as the thief with designs on Francis. The first was made by Paramount, the second by Warner Bros., but in an atypical style – in fact, if you showed me the film without credits, I'd have bet on Paramount. I love both films. But if I have to chose a favourite, I'd go with “Jewel Robbery”, as I feel it has improved with every viewing. However, it suffers from two obvious disadvantages even before one watches it: its availability and its similarity to Lubitsch's film.

On the first point, one of the great problems in defining the film canon (or any other canon) is availability. If a film is not shown, how are we to judge it? “Jewel Robbery” is neither well-know nor was it easily available or screened: and if no one can see it, no one can judge it. If it has no reputation, then it's forgotten. Fortunately, more recently it seems to have been rescued and it even has made it into the wonderful “Forbidden Hollywood” DVD sets (which is how I first discovered it). Don't get me wrong, this a Hollywood factory product; just a damn good one. On the second point, the film probably struggled with is its thematic similarity to the better known Lubistch and more important its well-deserved reputation in his canon. I have no idea of the production order of the films, and whether WB copied Paramount or vice-versa (since Kay Francis was borrowed from WB I wouldn't discard it) or if it was just a coincidence, but “Jewel Robbery” made into the screens two months earlier according to IMDb.

Kay Francis is, of course, the obvious thing the two films have in common. And despite the many, many wardrobe changes (the most extreme example being the “Yes Madam Colet/No Madam Colet” sequence in “Trouble in Paradise”), the characters are quite different. Lubistch goes at lengths to show that Madame Colet, while a bit naïve and very rich and keen on pretty things, isn't a bad person – she fights her boardroom quite charmingly saying she won't lower her employees wages. By contrast, in “Jewel Robbery” and by her own admission, Francis' character is a thrill seeking, superficial and bored lady who lunches. This is maintained throughout the film, from her glorious awakening and bath to her final close-up. What both films show is that Francis was a good comedienne and ask an interesting “what if” her career had been in Paramount comedies rather than the WB cheaper women's pictures.

Both films are also prime Pre-Code examples. Just to stick to “Jewel Robbery”: suggestive dresses (the dressing gown), drug use, adultery for thrills, trivialisation of marriage (the suggestion that she should be faithful because of diamonds) and several stages of undressing, many, many hints of sex and of course, Kay Francis' glorious, naughty final close-up. At moments it feels like it out-Lubistches Lubitsch...

But “Jewel Robbery” has two great advantages over the Lubitsch. The most obvious is the leading man. William Powell is a perfect cast as the suave, seducing thief. The initial robbery sequence is a perfect display of his easiness in the role. Herbert Marshall is just flat. It's his best performance as far as I can tell, but there isn't much competition there. The second is the flow of the film. The tight timescale (the action lasts less than 24h) helps maintain a coherence that is missing in “Trouble in Paradise”, which goes from Venice to Paris over the course of several months, and more importantly the way it frames the two women in the picture: Miriam Hopkins dominates the first 20min or so, then disappears for a considerable amount of time and never fully reappears.

But it is the Hopkins/Francis duality that actually gives “Trouble in Paradise” its strongest grip over the audience. Like in “The Philadelphia Story” a few years later, you are never sure which woman will win – for this is a duel between the two and the spoils are the man and the jewels he steals. Then, there are the many wonderful witty moments Lubitsch filled his films with. From the dialogue (e.g. “maybe I am wrong, maybe he is her secretary”); the closed doors and changing clocks; and finally the two most obvious sexual moments in Lubitsch's work I am aware, the two moments when Hopkins and Marshall out-steal each other.

The other thing that works well in the Lubitsch film is that is clearly an ensemble piece. Hopkins is wonderful whenever she's given a chance (as she would be later in “Design for Living”) even if her mannerisms occasionally are a bit too much. Then there are Charlie Ruggles and Edward Everett Horton in one of his less prissy roles, albeit the one that suggests that he may prefer “business associates” of both genders. C. Aubrey Smith and Robert Greig complete the cast. By contrast, “Jewel Robbery” becomes quickly a two hander between Francis and Powell (in their sixth of seven collaborations).

I think these are two of the best Pre-Code comedies Hollywood produced. They are precursors of the elegant comedies to come, mostly done by Paramount and starring the likes of Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard and Barbara Stanwyck. They're also more adult that what would become the norm in film; films where excitement and thrills (or lust, if you prefer) win over love and wholesome values. Which probably make them perfect for the 21st century.

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)

On the Riviera, an American millionaire (Gary Cooper) falls in love with the daughter (Claudette Colbert) of a bankrupt French marquis (Edward Everett Horton). When she finds out she's going to be wife number eighth, and that marriage for him is just another business venture, she decides to teach him a lesson.

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, this was his last Paramount film. When I wrote about "Ninotchka", also directed by Lubitsch, also scripted by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, I mentioned that it felt more like Wilder than it Lubitsch. Here, this is pure Lubitsch, full of the wit that made him famous (the opening sequences at the store, the charge Cooper makes towards Colbert's bedroom, the many Czechoslovakia gags) even if its Lubitschian meet-cute is pure Wilder according to IMDb. The film's location (Paris and the Riviera) and cast (Cooper and Everett Horton) also seem to reference previous films ("Trouble in Paradise", "Design for Living", "Angel" and the Borzage directed "Desire").

The impact of the Hays Code is striking: a woman decides to teach the man a lesson because he doesn't act according to the sanctity of marriage. But the way she does it is slightly subversive. In post-1934 Hollywood, marriage was first and foremost a way to sanctify sex. Whole films, such as Minnelli's "The Clock", basically exist because the two leads are not allowed just to get a hotel room. Here, Claudette Colbert suppresses it after the wedding as well (the distancing of the two during the honeymoon is another lovely Lubitsch touch), thus exposing the hypocrisy of the whole thing: Gary Cooper can't have sex outside marriage because he's not allowed (basically the reason why he married seven times before), but he's also denied it afterwards because he doesn't believe in the right type of marriage, having basically bought Colbert. But, supreme irony of Lubitsch, Wilder and Brackett, when they do have sex, they aren't married anymore, proving the point that censors aren't really the cleverest of people.

While not an absolute masterpiece, it is delightful and entertaining - I confess that having seen it once before I didn't remember anything other than the pajamas at the beginning. While there is some good support from Edward Everett Horton and David Niven, this is really a two hander between the two leads. Claudette Colbert is a delight to watch, at her prime as commedienne, and so is Cooper for that matter. I have to say this is probably my favourite performance of his although he usually doesn't do it for me. I usually find him a bit wooden, but here there is a vitality unmatched in any of his performances I have seen.

The film also reminded me somewhat of "The Lady Eve", which was a couple of years into the future, with the idea of a woman seeking to punish a man that she feels has let her down by marrying him and then making mince meat out of him.

Ninotchka (1939)

"Garbo Laughs!". Ernst Lubitsch's "Ninotchka" is so often reduced to that. True, it seems the slogan was decided before any line was written and  I understand MGM's need for the slogan (it's good and catchy), but on another hand I find it simplifies the film tremendously, focusing solely on one scene.

"Ninotchka" is probably set in the early/mid-1930s, at the time the Soviet Union sold many of its treasures to the West. In the film, a trade delegation is sent to Paris to sell the state confiscated court jewels from Grand-Duchess Swana (played by Ina Claire). Warned of this by a loyal White Russian, now a waiter at the hotel used by the delegation, she sends her lover, a bankrupt French nobleman, Leon (Melvyn Douglas) to delay the procedures. In response, Moscow sends a new negotiator, comrade Nina Ivanova Yakushova, also known as Ninotchka (Greta Garbo).

"Ninotchka" is a comedy, a romance and a political satire. The romance, mostly evident in the later sequences in Paris is probably the most routine part of the film, but it still is carried well. But where the film excels is in the comedy, the satire and the mix of both. When she arrives in Paris, Ninotchka is almost an authomaton, heartless and emotionless - her approach to men ("Must you flirt?") and love/sex (a chemical process) sum of her view of the world. The first sequence in Leon's appartment is brilliant and most interesting, quite explicit for the time - she was there for sex... ("Go to bed, little father. We want to be alone.") The comedy sections, particularly the fall of the three Soviet commissars is where Lubitsch's touch is most present. The hats changing, and the maids running around are things he used in other places as well.

But the satire, and some of the best lines of dialogue, seem to me that come from Billy Wilder, who signed the script with Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch. Lines like "There are going to be fewer but better Russians" and "I should hate to see our country endangered by my underwear" are too sharp to be anyone else's. I also think that the delicate balance of keeping Communists and Capitalists (and Nazis at one moment), White Russians and Red Russians, in a delicate balance where no one comes out well and everyone is the same is his - and from what I know from their partnership, I'd say the fact that we care for them is probably due to Brackett. The two scenes between Swana and Ninotchka give glimpses of the harsh reality: in the first, Ninotchka refers to the cruelty of the cossacks; in the second Swana mentions the pain of being an expatriate (and who is fighting to keep the man she loves, even if she'll never admit it). In that moment, and despite the hindsight of history, Swana was rather touching and a real person, as opposed to a frivolous Grand-Duchess.

This is also the film where Garbo gives us a tantalising glimpse of what her career might have become if the war (her main market seems to have been in Europe), bad advise would have not interfered (she allegedly refused another film with Lubitsch on advice from a friend) and her decision to leave cinema had not come to place. Gone is tragidienne, and suddenly a modern actress that could have carried on through the 1940s. Her stone faced comissar is as brilliant as her woman in love - although, I have to say, I cringe at her laughing scene. She does look fake.

Melvyn Douglas gives one of his best pre-war performances (and would reunite with Garbo two years later for her final film) and I couldn't go without a word for the brilliant trio of Iranoff, Buljanoff and Kopalski (Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach) who steal every scene they're in. Even the ending.

From Sci-fi to Lubitsch...

I watched “Forbidden Planet” last night, and in one scene where a very "helpful" lieutenant tries to explain to Dr Morbius’s daughter what kissing is, I couldn’t help earing in my head “again…” said in a heavy voice. It took me ages to realise what it was - it was Garbo demanding more kisses from Melvyn Douglas in “Ninotchka”…

Heaven Can Wait (1943)

Last night I saw Lubitsch’s “Heaven can wait” for the first time in a few years. I have to say my opinion of the film hasn’t changed that much: it is a minor Lubitsch. It has charm. The relation between Don Ameche and Gene Tierney is very well built. Some highlights are the library scene when Don Ameche and Gene Tierney are alone for the first time, Mrs Cooper Cooper (mostly by the remarks that other characters make about her), any scene with Charles Coburn and the scene between Eugene Pallette and Marjorie Main.

Despite all this I didn’t engage with it as I do with most of his other of his later films (I don’t know most his earlier work). I think part of my problem with it is how slow paced and melancholic it is. Lubitsch wasn’t very healthy and probably thought this was going to be his last film, and that transpires.

It wouldn’t be my suggestion to an introduction to Lubitsch ("Ninotchka", "Design for Living" or "Bluebeard’s Eight Wife" are much better), but it’s definitely worth some time.