Decadent, frothy, amoral and deliciously funny -- sometimes to a rolling-in-the-aisles degree -- this film is likely to make your jaw drop with the delightfully brazen fantasy of it all: there's a real Viennese lightness to the tale of the Countess who longs to become an honest adventuress and the gentleman thief with a /modus operandi/ so civilised that his victims are caught completely off-balance -- it almost makes sense. (I particularly loved the gramophone in a hatbox that he carries everywhere with him, and the accomplice who deferentially presents him with a case containing the gun for use in the hold-up!)
The dialogue demonstrates, not for the first time, that suggestion is far sexier than explicit grunt-and-heave, and the costumes are Hollywood fantasy writ large for the audience's delight. Suavity naturally rules, irony is writ large, and my only complaint was that I inadvertently guessed one of the plot twists a few minutes before the heroine did, thus losing the pleasure of the surprise. I suspect that the Middle-European setting in a famously frivolous Vienna allowed the script to dare even further than would otherwise have been permitted, but basically if you think you hear an innuendo and it's funny then it's probably entirely intentional...
My main fear is that if I ever get to watch this again (probably unlikely, alas) it can't possibly live up to my memories of seeing it tonight, with a full house rocking with laughter and a freshly-restored print on the big screen.
The dialogue demonstrates, not for the first time, that suggestion is far sexier than explicit grunt-and-heave, and the costumes are Hollywood fantasy writ large for the audience's delight. Suavity naturally rules, irony is writ large, and my only complaint was that I inadvertently guessed one of the plot twists a few minutes before the heroine did, thus losing the pleasure of the surprise. I suspect that the Middle-European setting in a famously frivolous Vienna allowed the script to dare even further than would otherwise have been permitted, but basically if you think you hear an innuendo and it's funny then it's probably entirely intentional...
My main fear is that if I ever get to watch this again (probably unlikely, alas) it can't possibly live up to my memories of seeing it tonight, with a full house rocking with laughter and a freshly-restored print on the big screen.