So this is Lubitsch at his most sparkling, sexy and charmingly inventive. So This Is Paris was planned as one of Warner Bros.’ “special” productions, at a time when the studio was expanding. However, it turned out to be the last film Lubitsch made there before moving on, first to make The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg for MGM and thence to Paramount. As such, it was given only a limited release, in July 1926. “Variety”’s critic ridiculed the decision to put it out at such a quiet time, calling it “a corking comedy that should have been held back until the season”. “The New York Times” would list it as one of the ten best films of the year. In this frothy jazz-age farce, the corks pop from champagne bottles as Parisian revellers dance the Charleston until the small hours in a ballroom decked out with giant ladies’ legs – the most extravagant of the lofty sets designed by Harold Grieve. The premise is essentially a more raucous version of Lubitsch’s previous The Marriage Circle (1924) or Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925) . Monte Blue and Patsy Ruth Miller play Dr Giraud and his amorous wife. They live across the way from a bohemian couple, M and Mme Lalle, played by Andre Beranger and Lilyan Tashman, who pass their time with modern dance, fancy dress and casual infidelity. Mme Giraud can’t tear her eyes away from M Lalle in his skimpy Sheik outfit, and the doctor soon discovers that Mme Lalle is a face from his disreputable past. Mischief ensues. The four lead performances are consistently engaging, and Lubitsch sprinkles a few special effects around wisely. Dr Giraud’s fantasy of his lost cane is a Freudian’s dream and when his wife cuts him down to size the film does too. According to press reports, audiences spontaneously applauded the scenes in which he overdoes it on the champagne – his intoxication conveyed effectively by superimpositions and the use of a kaleidoscopic lens. As if you needed any more enticement to sample this French fancy, a pre-stardom Myrna Loy appears as the Lalles’ maid.

Pamela Hutchinson