The Smiling Lieutenant, 1932

Director Ernst Lubitsch
Studio Paramount
Academy Award Best Picture nominee
Starring Maurice Chevalier; Claudette Colbert,  Miriam Hopkins, Charles Ruggles
IMDB Link:  The Smiling Lieutenant

sez says: This is unadulterated fun. It is like having a cookie in the afternoon--not a meal but a treat all the same. There is not much of a story line but what little there is keeps you wondering how it will end. It is sad that the 'Film Codes" stopped these 'sex-farces'  from being made that tell the audience, as Chevalier says, that boys and girls who add a wink to their smile have more in mind than holding hands. Colbert can sing and she tells Hopkins that she knows that in the end girls who 'stay for breakfast before having dinner' seldom win their man. And Hopkins does a fabulous job of transforming herself from a 'dumpy-dumb-princess" to a swinging singing vamp when her rival tells her that lingerie matters.

mjc says:  it is tempting to contemplate the magical direction movies could have gone without the interference of the legion of prudes who eviscerated the story lines and drained the drama from good stories.  It is amazing that as many quality films got made as did, slipping through the censors.