John Guare recommends Trouble in Paradise by Ernst Lubitsch

John Guare has never led me wrong. In Movies he recommended Trouble in Paradise, a fast moving, quippy romantic comedy directed by Ernst Lubisch in 1932. I was watching it the other day and kept moving closer and closer to my TV so that I wouldn't miss one second of it. Every shot is perfection itself. 

Trouble in Paradise
Ernst Lubitsch, 1932

If you've ever heard of the phrase "the Lubitsch touch" you know it refers to the most elegant and raucous amoral comedy, all done by indirection and suggestion.  Ernst Lubitsch's  Trouble in Paradise is the tale of two thieves who fall for each other.  The moonlit dinner where they meet and pick each other's pockets is one of the greatest love scenes in any medium.  "I hope you don't mind if I keep your garter," he says at the end of the scene...and she hadn't even missed it.  Then they team up, and he falls for their intended victim.

Screenwriter Samson Raphaelson was a Broadway playwright whose tearjerker The Jazz Singer was made into the first talkie, with Al Jolson.  But Raphaelson had nothing to do with that film and everything to do  with this one and with his next collaboration with Lubitsch, 1940's charming Shop Around the Corner with Margaret Sullivan and James Stewart.  That one takes place in a more or less recognizable world filled with earnest working people.   But Trouble in Paradise floats in a parallel universe of romance and style that you feel must exist somewhere--if you could only meet the right person.  It's the high-water mark of cinematic wit.

John Guare
Playwright