“What would Lubitsch do?” This was the famous phrase Billy Wilder had emblazoned on his office wall, a testament to the German director’s impeccable taste. Where one director would be cynical, Lubitsch would be sweet. Where another would be zany, he would be sincere. And where most would be sexually blunt and awkward, he could be deceptively delicate and no less racy.
“Trouble in Paradise” is his finest film, a pre-code movie that embodies the best of his sophisticated, classy approach to farce as well as his gift with suggestive innuendos, romance and goofy, quick witted characters who would later define an entire genre of screwball comedy.
That “Trouble in Paradise” is so decidedly not a “screwball” but a satire in which the characters talk swiftly, their intentions are in the wrong place and their situations are absurd and exaggerated is exactly what makes it so perfect and indicative of the “Lubitsch touch.” His signature is also, as Andrew Sarris put it, “a poignant sadness infiltrates the director’s gayest moments,” and its these genuine moments of pathos and niceties in his characters that sets it apart from the screwballs that tend to be all one-sided. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Trouble in Paradise”