A plumber's niece (Jennifer Jones) and a Czech refugee (Charles Boyer) meet briefly when she fixes the drain pipes at the flat of a British aristocrat (Reginald Gardiner). Later they meet again at an English country manor, he as a guest and she as a servant, where they find themselves victims of the English class system. Based on the novel by Margery Sharp, this wickedly witty comedy was the last film completed by the great Ernst Lubitsch (he died while filming
THAT LADY IN ERMINE which was completed by Otto Preminger) and it's a great swan song. The famed "Lubitsch touch" is much in evidence and his pointed arrows at the upper English classes (and their servants) find their target every time. Some of the humor is surprisingly racy. When referring to drain pipes, Jones proclaims the joy of "banging", the prissy servants mistake it for something else! Jones is a delight and it's clear from this (and
BEAT THE DEVIL) that she missed her calling as a comedienne. Boyer exudes his effortless continental charm and, indeed, the entire cast is perfection. Among them Peter Lawford, Helen Walker (
NIGHTMARE ALLEY), Reginald Owen, Richard Haydn, Una O'Connor, Sara Allgood and C. Aubrey Smith.
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