Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

MissSimonetta Jewel Robbery (1932) has a reputation as one of the most pre-code of the pre-code period. The heroine is an adrenaline-junkie socialite whose hobbies include jewelry-hunting and adultery. The romantic lead is a gentleman thief who prefers to incapacitate his victims with marijuana cigarettes rather than at the end of a gun. When the two meet, what results is a smoldering, witty onscreen romance that ends with crime paying big.Some might accuse the film of being very slight. At 66 minutes, it just barely put in a character arc for the Kay Francis character. However, this is a fun movie, one that does not try to be anything but pure confectionery-- and when the confectionery is as tasty as Jewel Robbery, only a grouch would complain!

Igenlode Wordsmith 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.

GManfred "Jewel Robbery" is a movie made by grown-ups, written for grown-ups and starring grown-ups. This one almost qualifies as a costumer as everyone is in 'evening dress', this being 1932. It aired on TCM the other morning and I can't tell you what a refreshing break it was from what passes for modern comedy.Do you like William Powell? Here he was never more debonair and urbane, not even in his Philo Vance pictures or as Nick Charles. Are you familiar with Kay Francis? She was so - what's the word - 'feminine' will do. Yes, that's perfect. And together they were perfect in this Pre-Code comedy which keeps you waiting for the next exchange of delicious dialogue.He is a gentleman thief and she is a bored wife looking for excitement, adventure, etc. The story is clever enough but the script is the thing here. Truly, they don't make films like this anymore. Adam Sandler, you have no clue, son. This is sophisticated stuff.'Jewel Robbery' is only the 2nd picture I have given a 9 to, and it was richly deserved.

bkoganbing In Jewel Robbery the kind of character that William Powell plays is a gentleman thief, but he's not a guy like Ronald Colman in Raffles or Cary Grant in To Catch A Thief. He just barges in, holds people at gunpoint and robs them or in this case the establishment they're in.Which makes you kind of wonder why this guy hasn't been caught yet. The answer lies in the story and for the audience in the debonair charm of William Powell.At the time Powell was teamed with Kay Francis in this film. This was the fifth of six films they did together. Both came over from Paramount to Warner Brothers. Before Powell did Manhattan Melodrama at MGM with Myrna Loy and started that screen partnership, he was known for teaming with Kay Francis. The setting for Jewel Robbery, based on a play by Ladislas Fodor is old Vienna of the new Austria which became a more compact country after being shorn of both the Hapsburg monarchy and its Balkan dependents. Francis is in a jewelry store doing a little shopping with as it turns out both her titled husband Henry Kolker and her cabinet member lover Hardie Albright.When Powell and his gang come in to rob the place, Powell's such a charming dude, Francis decides he's far more interesting than either of the two guys she's involved with. He's kind of intrigued with her as well.In the Citadel series Films Of William Powell the criticism of Jewel Robbery is that this film could have been a classic with a director like Ernst Lubitsch. I also think Mitchell Leisen or George Cukor, or Gregory LaCava would have worked wonders with this film. Given some of the double entendre dialog and the ending of this film, it certainly would not have passed muster with The Code which was coming in two more years.As it is, it's a pleasant enough film, but could have been a whole lot better.