Trouble in Paradise (1932)

Director:

Ernst Lubitsch

Writers:

Aladar Laszlo (play)
Grover Jones (adaptation)

Release Date:

21 October 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Romance

Plot:

High class European thief Gaston Monesque meets his soul mate Lily, a pickpocket masquerading as a countess...

Plot Keywords:

Thief | Jealousy | Pickpocket | Secretary | Perfume

Awards:

1 win

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Miriam Hopkins	...	Lily
Kay Francis	...	Madame Mariette Colet
Herbert Marshall	...	Gaston Monescu
Charles Ruggles	...	The Major (as Charlie Ruggles)
Edward Everett Horton	...	François Filiba
C. Aubrey Smith	...	Adolph J. Giron
Robert Greig	...	Jacques, Mariette's Butler
Leonid Kinskey	...	The Communist
George Humbert	...	Waiter

Also Known As:

The Golden Widow (USA) (pre-release title)
The Honest Finder (USA) (working title)
Thieves and Lovers (USA) (working title)
Ärger im Paradies (Germany) [de]
Haute pègre (France) [fr]
Huolia paratiisissa (Finland) [fi]
Ladrão de Alcova (Portugal) [pt]
Madame forelsker sig (Denmark) [da]
Mancia competente (Italy) [it]
Tjuvar i paradiset (Sweden) [sv]
Trubel im Paradies (Austria) [de]
Un ladrón en la alcoba (Spain) [es]

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian | Russian | Spanish | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

Norway:16 (1933) | USA:Passed | South Korea:12 (2003) | Australia:PG | Finland:(Banned) | West Germany:12 (nf)

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

"Little" Mary Pickford, the silent film star, liked Ernst Lubitsch's tasteful touches of suggestiveness enough to ask him to direct her in a film that would help her show more maturity on screen. But she did not get along with Lubitsch himself nor did she appreciate 'Rosita,' the film they made together. In later years she usually ranked it with her worst films.

Quotes:

Lily Vautier: You know, when I first saw you, I thought you were an American.
Gaston Monescu: Thank you.
Lily Vautier: Someone from another world, so entirely different. Oh, one gets so tired of one's own class - princes and counts and dukes and kings! Everybody talking shop. Always trying to sell you jewelry. Then I heard your name and found out you were just one of us.
Gaston Monescu: Disappointed?
Lily Vautier: No, proud. Very proud.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in One, Two, Three (1961)

Soundtrack:

O Sole Mio

(In times like these it's) Poetry in Motion

An utterly beautiful film. I watched this for at least the 18th time last night - about once a year every year since I taped it off TV in 1987. Did it let me down? It hasn't yet and I don't think it ever will: I was as captivated by it as I was the first time, and yet it portrays a world, its people and their actions I'll never know, and probably wouldn't want to know either. Some people I know can't watch any film or TV programme a second time and are puzzled when I can - then they listen to a piece of music that they've heard 4000 times before in their lives.

Lubitsch's peerless masterpiece about two crooks (Gaston and Lily) moving amongst high society, falling in love with each other, with high society and with high society in the attractive shape of rich businesswoman Madame Colet falling in love with Gaston is a witty, charming, sophisticated, erudite, relentless, sparkling etc comedy that by the finish has had the effect of defragmenting my mind and deleting the real world for a short while - no mean feat! Every second of every scene carries it's witticisms, not a moment is wasted from the dignified opening with the title song fading into the rubbish boat on the Grand Canal in Venice to the swift orgasmic climax in the taxi in Paris. At the beginning when the stricken Monsieur Philiba rises and falls to the floor of his hotel room again and the Neapolitan music lulls you across a cheesy model set to where the smoking Gaston is urbanely discussing cocktails with a waiter you should know you are in for something special. Ultra demure Kay Francis gets to says Divine twice in a row! Even looking at nothing but a clock for a minute carries a soundtrack bulging with wit and innuendo. Something as unimportant as Herbert Marshall apparently running up and down Kay Francis's stairs (on camera, in mirrors or in sound only) turns out to be an in-joke - he had only one leg. Other running gags make you smile after the film has long finished, such as Positively Tonsils and No Potatoes. And to think about this film even years later it's always with the lilting, insistent, mocking romantic background music! But I could go on and on, there's enough in this for 10 films of today to borrow if they could make them like this any more. "Frasier" on TV has been the closest in sophisticated comedy in recent times, but even so it couldn't match TIP's compact inventiveness. Out of the 97 million movies I've watched this is definitely in my top 5 favourites.

It's a pity that so many people can so easily be put off by black and white photography and bygone stars who they've never heard of; in this case what they're missing out on is near perfection, and again another film that will still be available when all of the undisciplined uncensored in-your-face films of today are forgotten.