Day 30: The "Smartest" Film You've Seen

Kay Francis, Miriam Hopkins, and Herbert Marshall experience Trouble in Paradise. 

Day 30 of the 31 Day Film Challenge: The “smartest” film you’ve seen.

When I think of smart films I think of Ernst Lubitsch, the king of sophistication and wit. With the “Lubitsch touch,” he made films that dealt with sex, love, class, politics, and crime in such a smart way that often the censors didn’t catch on. 

One of his best is Trouble in Paradise (1932) in which a couple of thieves (Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins) plan to con a wealthy woman (Kay Francis) but things don’t go quite according to plan. From the opening title in which he inserts the image of a bed after the words "Trouble in" to a shot of a couple on a sofa that then dissolves to an empty sofa, signalling they're off having sex, Lubitsch let's the viewer know that this is a film for grown-ups and a smart one at that.

To find out more about the 31 Day Film Challenge, visit here.