Ernst Lubitsch

Trouble in Paradise

Trouble in Paradise

Ernst Lubitsch’s famed touch is on exquisite display in this sexy pre-Code jewel, glittering with witty innuendo and elegant comic invention. It’s love at first swindle when high-society thief Gaston Monescu (Herbert Marshall) and pickpocket Lily Vautier (Miriam Hopkins) cross paths amid the canals of Venice while attempting to con each other—and then it’s off to Paris, where the pair meet their match in their latest mark, the très chic Madame Colet (Kay Francis), whose fabulous fortune is exceeded only by her powers of seduction. With its delightfully risqué dialogue, swoonworthy couture, and high deco style, Trouble in Paradise is a pinnacle of comic-romantic sophistication that fizzes like the finest champagne.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1932
  • 82 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.37:1
  • English
  • Spine #170

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Audio commentary featuring Scott Eyman, biographer of director Ernst Lubitsch
  • Introduction by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
  • New video essay by critic David Cairns
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme

    New cover by Simone Massoni

Purchase Options

Coming soon, available Apr 14, 2026

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Audio commentary featuring Scott Eyman, biographer of director Ernst Lubitsch
  • Introduction by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
  • New video essay by critic David Cairns
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme

    New cover by Simone Massoni
Trouble in Paradise
Cast
Miriam Hopkins
Lily Vautier
Kay Francis
Mariette Colet
Herbert Marshall
Gaston Monescu
Charles Ruggles
Major
Edward Everett Horton
François Filiba
C. Aubrey Smith
Adolph J. Giron
Robert Greig
Jacques
Credits
Director
Ernst Lubitsch
Produced by
Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay by
Samson Raphaelson
Adapted by
Grover Jones
From a play by
Aladár László
Director of photography
Victor Milner
Music by
W. Franke Harling
Lyrics by
Leo Robin
Gowns by
Travis Banton
Art director
Hans Dreier
Sound by
M. M. Paggi

Current

Trouble in Paradise: Lovers, On the Money
Trouble in Paradise: Lovers, On the Money

Ernst Lubitsch set the screwball comedy standard, treating hard-on material with dignified aplomb and a combination of suaveness, hilarity, and sexiness.

By Armond White

For the Love of the Con
For the Love of the Con

The best movies about con artists highlight something their makers share with the fraudsters they depict: an intuitive sense of people’s desires and a talent for ruthless manipulation.

By Terrence Rafferty

Azazel Jacobs’s Top 10
Azazel Jacobs’s Top 10

The director shares some of the films that have helped guide his creative process and inspired his approach to his latest movie, French Exit.

Pre-Code Comedy Bliss in Madison

Repertory Picks

Pre-Code Comedy Bliss in Madison

Ernst Lubitsch’s masterpiece screens in Madison this weekend in a festival showcasing films recently restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Miguel Arteta’s Top 10
Miguel Arteta’s Top 10

Miguel Arteta has directed the films Star Maps, Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl, Youth in Revolt, and Cedar Rapids.

Angus MacLachlan’s Top 10
Angus MacLachlan’s Top 10

Angus MacLachlan is a playwright and screenwriter from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His screen credits include Junebug (2005) and Stone (2010).

Explore

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.”