The Smiling Lieutenant

Plot

In Vienna, Lieutenant Nikolaus "Niki" von Preyn (Maurice Chevalier) meets Franzi (Claudette Colbert), the leader of an all-female-orchestra. They soon fall in love with each other. While standing in formation before a parade honoring the visiting royal family of Flausenthurm, Niki takes the opportunity to wink at Franzi in the crowd. Unfortunately the gesture is intercepted by Anna, the Princess of Flausenthurm (Miriam Hopkins). The naive Princess assumes offense, leading the lieutenant to convince her that he slighted her because she is thought to be very beautiful. Besotted, the Princess demands she has to marry the lieutenant, or, she'll marry an American instead. The international incident is narrowly averted by having them get married.

The Lieutenant sneaks away from his bride to wander the streets of Flausenthurm to find his girlfriend. The princess learns of this and decides to confront Franzi. After the initial confrontation, Franzi sees that the princess is in fact deeply in love with the lieutenant, and decides to save the marriage by giving the princess a makeover, singing "Jazz up your lingerie!"

The results are a complete success as the Lieutenant follows his satin-clad, cigarette-puffing bride into the bedroom and closes the door – only to open it and give the audience a last song and a suggestive wink.

Cast

Production

The film was not made under pleasant circumstances: the shift to the Astoria, New York, studios accounts for the sense of confinement on set. Chevalier described performing – "smiles and cute winks of the eye" – a "mechanical display of technique" due to grief over his mother's death. Lubitsch also played referee between Colbert and Hopkins, who were determined to be shot from the same angle. Lubitsch encouraged their dispute that suited their characters on screen.

Scenes from the film were included in the 1931 promotional film by Paramount, The House That Shadows Built.

Reception

The Smiling Lieutenant was Paramount's biggest grosser of 1931. Barrios claims that "Lubitsch and Chevalier were invincible". It was also named the year's "Best Ten" by The New York Times, along with Charlie Chaplin's City Lights and F. W. Murnau's Tabu.

Lubitsch was still in the process of mastering sound-on-film technology and combining it with narrative: James Harvey acclaims that "technically The Smiling Lieutenant is the most accomplished of Lubitsch's early sound films. In sets, camerawork, background music, alternations of sound and silence, thus the film reaches a certain level that makes The Love Parade and Monte Carlo look comparatively stilted". For Andrew Sarris, The Smiling Lieutenant stands between the "lilting lyricism" of Love Parade and the "tempered ironies" in Trouble in Paradise.

Due to an ongoing copyright dispute with the silent-film version, The Smiling Lieutenant remained out of circulation for years and was considered as a lost film until a print was discovered in Denmark in the 1990s. When the film resurfaced, the "general elation" was followed by "an inevitable let down" due to technical problems.

"The Lubitsch Touch"

The notion of "The Lubitsch Touch" is used to describe the visual comment or joke that becomes a trademark or signature of Lubitsch's films. Billy Wilder defines the touch in relation to The Smiling Lieutenant: "It was the elegant use of the Superjoke. You had a joke, and you felt satisfied, and then there was one more big joke on top of it. The joke you didn't expect. That was the Lubitsch touch." The ultimate Superjoke is that at the end of the film, "the wrong girl gets the man".