Ernst Lubitsch

Trouble in Paradise

Trouble in Paradise

When thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) meets his true love in pickpocket Lily (Miriam Hopkins), they embark on a scam to rob lovely perfume company executive Mariette Colet (Kay Francis). But when Gaston becomes romantically entangled 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 in Trouble in Paradise, a pinnacle of the sophisticated romantic comedy, loaded with sparkling dialogue, witty innuendo, and elegant comic invention.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1932
  • 82 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.33:1
  • English
  • Spine #170

Special Features

  • Audio commentary by Lubitsch biographer Scott Eyman (Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise)
  • Introduction by director Peter Bogdanovich
  • Ernst Lubitsch’s 1917 short film Das fidele Gefängnis (The Merry Jail)
  • 1940 Screen Guild Theater radio program featuring Ernst Lubitsch, Jack Benny, Claudette Colbert, and Basil Rathbone
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • Tributes to Lubitsch, written by Billy Wilder, Leonard Maltin, Cameron Crowe, Roger Ebert, and others

    New cover by Paul Davis

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • Audio commentary by Lubitsch biographer Scott Eyman (Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise)
  • Introduction by director Peter Bogdanovich
  • Ernst Lubitsch’s 1917 short film Das fidele Gefängnis (The Merry Jail)
  • 1940 Screen Guild Theater radio program featuring Ernst Lubitsch, Jack Benny, Claudette Colbert, and Basil Rathbone
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • Tributes to Lubitsch, written by Billy Wilder, Leonard Maltin, Cameron Crowe, Roger Ebert, and others

    New cover by Paul Davis
Trouble in Paradise
Cast
Miriam Hopkins
Lily
Kay Francis
Madame Mariette Colet
Herbert Marshall
Gaston Monescu
Charles Ruggles
The major
Edward Everett Horton
François Filiba
C. Aubrey Smith
Adolph J. Giron
Robert Grieg
Jacques
Credits
Director
Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay
Samson Raphaelson
Adaptation by
Grover Jones
From a play by
Aladar Laszlo
Cinematography
Victor Milner
Art direction
Hans Dreier
Costume design
Travis Banton

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Ernst Lubitsch

Director

Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch

It’s difficult to put into words exactly what is meant by “the Lubitsch touch.” It alludes to the director’s delicate hand, effervescent humor, and economy with words and images. The ineffable style the term attempts to capture was with Lubitsch from his cinematic beginnings in Berlin to his early days in the American studio system and his final years as a Hollywood stalwart. Born January 28, 1892, in Berlin, this clothing manufacturer’s son left the family firm for a life in show business. After starting out as a performer in Max Reinhardt’s fabled theater company, Lubitsch went on to star in silent slapsticks for Berlin’s Bioscop film studio (he became well-known as the comic character Meyer), eventually writing and directing his own movies and becoming part of the legendary UFA studio. The international success of some of those films, such as Carmen (1918) and Madame du Barry (1919), led American film superstar Mary Pickford to invite him to Hollywood. On the basis of movies like The Marriage Circle (1924) and Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925), Lubitsch earned a reputation in America as a hit-maker, and unlike many of his peers, he took to the transition to sound like a duck to water, pioneering the narrative movie musical with such Maurice Chevalier vehicles as The Love Parade (1929) and The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), in which he indulged his fondness for Viennese operettas. An adept of sparkling dialogue and naughty innuendo, Lubitsch flourished particularly in the pre-Hays-code Hollywood era—his continental romantic comedies and fanciful period pieces were flush with sexual repartee; such glittering confections as Trouble in Paradise (1932), Design for Living (1933), and The Merry Widow (1934) were perfect escapes for the beleaguered audiences of the Great Depression. So great was Lubitsch’s success that in 1935 he was named head of production at Paramount, though he held that position for only one year. He would continue to craft more studio smashes, however, for MGM and 20th Century-Fox, many of which are still beloved today, including Ninotchka (1939), To Be or Not to Be (1942), and Heaven Can Wait (1943). Early in 1947, shortly before his death from a heart attack, Lubitsch was awarded a lifetime achievement Oscar, recognizing his “twenty-five-year contribution to motion pictures.”