Trouble in Paradise (The Criterion Collection)

When thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meets his true love in pick-pocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), they embark on a scam to rob lovely perfume company executive Mariette Colet (Kay Francis). But when Gaston becomes romantically entangles with Mme. Colet, their larcenous ruse is jeopardized and Gaston is forced to choose between two beautiful women. Legendary director Ernst Lubitsch's masterful touch is in full flower Trouble in Paradise, a pinnacle of the sophisticated romantic comedy, loaded with sparkling dialogue, witty innuendo, and elegant comic invention.

Trouble in Paradise is the supreme example of "the Lubitsch touch," that mastery of comic timing, diamond-cutter precision, and Continental sophistication that made Ernst Lubitsch a household name and the real star of every movie he directed. A pair of prodigiously talented, utterly charming scoundrels (Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins) become personal assistants to an aristocratic Parisian widow (Kay Francis). Their target is her fortune, but she's such an elegant lady, and so agreeably smitten with her new right-hand man, that he's tempted to pursue a secondary objective. Marshall, Hopkins, and Francis aren't remembered as major stars, but in this enchanted moment they are sublime. Likewise the peerlessly pixilated Edward Everett Horton and Charlie Ruggles as the widow's stuffed-shirt suitors. Trouble in Paradise is one of the best comedies ever made. There's not a line, word, or pause that doesn't belong exactly where it is, when it is, as it is. --Richard T. Jameson