L'avventura di Teri

Jewel Robbery (1932)

If you haven't seen why Pre-Code films are a riot—and very very well made— watch this one. Here the sassy, sexy, glammed up heist of a jewelry store becomes a game of manners and courtship. Jewels do in fact get stolen, but that's so not the point of the movie.

Centerpiece is William Powell, the superstar status still to come with his "Thin Man" and "Godfrey" roles. He's in top form, always a bit peculiar but really lovable and suave because of it. One of a kind.

Equal to him is Kay Francis, who is alive on screen like few actresses, and a great foil to Powell's cool. If Powell is still famous, Francis is not, and the reasons are not clear. (She was labeled "Box Office Poison" in a famous 1938 article, but that same piece labeled Joan Crawford and Kate Hepburn as well, both of whom had hardly begun their mature careers.) But Francis is a wonder in her heyday and you may as well start here to get why. (She was for years in the 1930s the highest paid actress bar none.)

So if you aren't convinced to see this yet, take the set design, the tightly engineered photography and editing, and the overall direction by William Dieterle, who is an underrated master of the classic Hollywood years. Again, just see this for proof.

As for the Code and its effect here, listen to the banter, which is fast and loaded with double entendres. No one skips a beat, and the fast swirl never gets confusing. Really a remarkably packed 70 minutes.

This film has to be on the short list of films-that-epitomize-pre-code-Hollywood. Adultery, drugs, crime, flaunting of morals and convention, free-spirit thumbing their nose, all done with humour and glamour. One can understand why the church was upset! Problem was that there were many films that played on these themes so it must have seemed that Hollywood was really out to corrupt the world. This one has the full package but with a wink and smoothness that today's garbage film-makers would never have the patience to pull-off. Too bad the code swung the pendulum way too far in the other direction. A must-see for Francis and Powell fans.

"Jewel Robbery" reflects the comic virtuosity of actors and actresses - and directors - in an eclectic Hollywood too soon to be stifled by THE Code. Kay Francis, little known to most movie buffs today, sparkles as a liberated, adventuresome and bored wife of a doting, not doddering exactly, but boring rich hubby. Apparently only his largess keeps her hitched and she seems quite open about looking for some exciting liaisons and she ain't talking about platonic ones either. The sexual innuendos aren't subtle. Neither are they serious.

William Powell is a suave and quick-witted gentleman jewel thief. In one sentence he dismisses the violence of his American counterparts, asserting the urbane civility of the European high class criminal.

"Reefer Madness," one of Hollywood's all-time great comedies, came out in 1937. In 1932 Powell, the jewel thief, dispenses marijuana cigarettes left and right and although the name is never used, the goofy behavior of the smokers prefigures the exaggerated and demonic grass-induced St. Vitus dance of the later documentary.

A short, sprightly comedy where crime is neither dangerous nor particularly even objectionable, "Jewel Robbery" is a small gem from a long bygone Hollywood. If you can rent it, do so. You won't be disappointed.

This is a wonderful companion to TROUBLE IN PARADISE, also featuring the immortal and neglected Kay Francis; it features the great William Powell in one of his most unrivaled moments on screen. Another great one from Dieterle who also directed the American classic DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER, which was recently released on DVD. Be nice to see this other classic of his become available. I viewed this on TCM and was entranced by the sparkling dialog; I wondered again why this effect seems impossible to achieve nowadays - was it that so many of these early actors had honed their talents on the stage? I would like to see this released on a disc with HIGH PRESSURE, another early Powell.

This is one of the raciest films of the 1930's. A married woman is having affairs all over the place, and then is willingly seduced by a gallant jewel thief. The movie just drips with illicit sex - you've got to see this one to believe it. Damn the Production Code for stopping films like this! Wavising Kay Fwancis has never been better!