An ineffable comedy with Merle Oberon, M. Douglas, Meredith, and Mowbray in a bit role, directed by Lubitsch: ageless fun, good-natured bourgeois humor, even risqué when possible (Merle explains about how she comes). The 19th century stage play has been updated, but it's still a comedy of the efficiency (as in the Hungarian party, that the pianist doesn't manage to hijack). Lubitsch sensed the possibilities of his players: of Merle, of Melvyn.
I have certainly felt like the guest at the right party.
M. Douglas seemed to enjoy his role, and looked more like B. Willis than like W. Powell
. (And after all, it's Melvyn in his workmanlike look.) Mowbray plays another creep: here, a psychoanalyst; he appeared, later, as the spooky colonel in a Holmes installment.
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