TROUBLE IN PARADISE (1932)

WORLD PREMIERE RESTORATION

Critics first started talking about German born director Ernst Lubitsch’s distinctive style, aka “The Lubitsch Touch,” as early as his silent picture. But with the move to talkies, the “Touch” gained a new dimension with a flirty, pre-Code sexual innuendo. Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins are thieves so adept they can pick pockets where none exist. They fall in love and set out to bilk Kay Francis, a wealthy widow with a successful perfume company. Their only problem is that Marshall and Francis start falling in love. The film shimmers with art deco sets by an uncredited Hans Dreier, sumptuous gowns by Travis Banton, and deft comic timing of its stars and supporting players like Charlie Ruggles and Edward Everett Horton. In the fourth of the nine films he made with writer Samson Raphaelson, Lubitsch threw out his source material, a Hungarian play, and instead drew inspiration from the career of Romanian con artist Georges Manolescu.

d. Ernst Lubitsch, 83m, DCP

New 4K digital restoration by the Criterion Collection in collaboration with Universal Pictures. Original monaural soundtrack restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.