I first saw Kay Francis in Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise over a decade ago. I had not given her much thought until I heard the podcast You Must Remember This’s episode about her.
Intrigued, I decided to check out the films highlighted in the podcast.
Bored with her well-to-do but routine existence, the Baroness’s (Francis) one joy is gaining new baubles.
On her latest excursion to buy a piece of jewellery, the Baroness crosses paths with the Robber (William Powell), who is also interested in possessing the store’s merchandise.
While he is intent on stealing jewels, the Robber inadvertently steals something else - the Baroness’s heart…
“This is becoming delightful!”
A vehicle for Francis and William Powell, Jewel Robbery is a delightful European fantasy - a bored aristocrat finding love and purpose with a daring criminal mastermind.
This movie should serve as a template for streaming movies - 68 mins long and it focuses on a capsule drama between a few people in a few locations.
The film has the brevity of a good short story.
The first scene establishes a sense of luxury and pomposity - an expert demonstrates the new ‘invisible’ alarm system, only for staff to discover that the store has already been robbed.
This puncturing of the upper classes continues in the next scene: Kay Francis’s Baroness is introduced in a bubble bath - ionically, she expresses frustration at her life as her every need is literally attended to (she ends the scene being carried into her makeup chair).
After this introduction, the action shifts to the jewellery store and the titular set piece.
When the Baroness confesses her inner boredom to would-be suitor ___ ( ), he treats it merely as further evidence that she needs to marry him.
Francis brings a guile and zest to the Baroness, particularly in her interactions with Powell.
Francis even sells the character’s fair weather feelings - she is briefly enraged when it seems like she has been robbed; only to fall deeper in love when she discovers her new admirer has returned her favourite ring
Powell matches her with a polite sense of frivolity - a near godlike figure, he is able to infiltrate anywhere and slip out of any trap the authorities set for him.
Rejecting violence, he is closer to a stage magician, orchestrating every element of his heist - he even includes music to provide a calm atmosphere.
He compliments the Baroness, showing an attention and knowledge lacking from her supposed lovers.
The supporting cast are solid:
Henry Kolker and Hardie Albright bring the biggest laughs as the Baroness’s self-aware husband, and the Baroness’s hypothetical future husband, respectfully.
The film pokes fun at the pomp and snobbery of the aristocracy - stuck in time and completely out of touch. When the Baroness confesses her inner boredom to her sidepiece Paul (Albright), he treats it merely as further evidence that she needs to marry him.
While the Baroness and the Robber share a love of the finer things (her prized ring - a symbol of matrimony - bonds them together in criminality. She half-heartedly tries to give it back to him but he refuses), they also share something else:
Sex.
Their burgeoning romance is infused with eroticism, and the film leans into the couple’s lust for possessions and each other without innuendo. Coming a few years before the Hays Code gained teeth, Jewel Robbery lacks the ellipses and more coded innuendo that would entomb cinematic desire (and other aspects of life) from American films for the next 30 years.
That openness to desire adds to the film’s sense of joy, and pleasure in pleasure.
Released in the depths of the Great Depression, Jewel Robbery is pure escapism.
The film ends with our heroes unpunished and unconverted to the side of ‘virtue’ - the Baroness stares down the camera with a cheeky finger to her lips, as she leaves for a rendezvous with her new lover.
Their romance is based on freedom - from obligation, punishment and structures of the upper classes. They get the spoils of being rich with none of the self-importance.
In its focus on a couple falling in love over crime, it feels like a spiritual predecessor to Mario Bava’s Danger Diabolik.
Director William Dieterele was disparaged by Billy Wilder as a set dresser, constantly framing characters by props and set dressing.
His style works for Jewel Robbery - characters are surrounded by opulence - and visualises the Baroness’s sense of entrapment and suffocation.
This becomes a refuge when she is with Powell’s Robber in his hideaway.
The brevity of the movie adds to its levity and sense of escapism - there is no danger that can be averted, or barrier that can stand between our lovers.
A real gem, no pun intended.
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