User reviews

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 (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.

William Powell is a smooth jewel thief who captivates Kay Francis in "Jewel Robbery," a 1932 film made before the dreaded code kicked in.

Set in Vienna, Francis plays a baroness who, like her friends, has married a dull man for money and takes lovers. While her husband is buying her a 28-carat diamond and she's arguing with her boyfriend, William Powell and his team enter to rob the store. It's love at first sight.

This is a slight but very amusing film, interesting for the racy story line, the outfits, and Kay Francis herself. A very unusual-looking woman, Francis' heyday was in the '30s, and everything about her screamed '30s, of course - her hair, her fashions, and the kind of films she made. She's somewhat frozen in time there.

Powell is his usual dashing, delightful self, and the two work very well together. The scene at Powell's place is particularly interesting, as she demands not to be asked to do anything, but to be forced, at which point, he picks her up and throws her onto his huge bed. "But there are so many pleasant in between steps," she objects.

A delightful movie, not terribly long, but fascinating given the era in film in which it was made.

"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.

Warner Brothers was bleeding some serious red ink in 1932. The public's once-insatiable talkie curiosity had worn off and the Depression had tightened it's stranglehold on America, causing ticket prices to drop below 1930-31 levels. Against this reality, the studio had actively pursued marginal Broadway plays it rightly thought could be had on the cheap and improved on; Ladislas Fordor's comedy "Ekszerrablás a Váci-uccában" (or "Jewel Robbery"), adapted for the stage by Bertram Bloch. The play had blown through the Booth Theatre after just 54 performances in front of half-filled seats. Purchased for a reported $10,000, the property came in at cost low enough to justify giving it an A-effort. Newly hired screenwriter Erwin S. Gelsey rewrote the play and recent German émigré William Dieterle was enlisted to direct. At this point Warner's was spending about $300,000 on it's A-efforts and was sandbagging it's huge losses (they would continue into 1936) from profits squirreled away from the salad days of 1928-31. Jewel Robbery did nothing to help it's 1932 bottom line. The film flopped miserably (critics cited Kay Francis' interpretation of a morally objectionable philandering Viennese trophy wife). The fact was, there wasn't much Depression era audiences could relate to. Warner's injection of sex and marijuana would doom any hope of eking out re-release profits after the 1934 Production Code kicked in and the property would remain virtually unseen until the inception of TCM. To contemporary audiences, Jewel Robbery is a pre-code hoot. To Jack L. Warner, it was an ulcer.

A bored Baroness discovers love & excitement when she becomes caught up in a thrilling JEWEL ROBBERY.

Scintillating, light as air and slightly naughty, this pre-Code charmer will delight discriminating viewers looking for a sophisticated comedy, a little trifle with which to while away an idle hour. Thievery, marijuana and infidelity--while very serious subjects--are here satirized almost to the point of insignificance. The whole purpose of this forgotten film--which compares nicely with the best of Lubitsch--is to provide the audience with a good time, and in that it succeeds quite admirably.

Beautiful Kay Francis is enchanting, her cool demeanor barely concealing the mischievous passions just below her elegant surface. Very bored with her wealthy but unattractive husband (Henry Kolker), she yearns for a more exciting life. Gentlemanly thief William Powell provides that opportunity. Suave & debonair, he instantly makes the viewer forgive his regrettable vocation. As a twosome, the stars bring just the right frisson of pleasure to their scenes to please all but the most jaded viewer.

The supporting cast further adds to the film's fine distillation. Hardie Albright as Francis' admirer & Helen Vinson as her friend both portray willing partakers of Old Vienna's hedonistic lifestyle. Spencer Charters is very humorous as a completely incompetent night watchman. Sour Clarence Wilson plays a police official, while Alan Mowbray shines in his few minutes as a no-nonsense detective.

Movie mavens will recognize rotund Robert Greig as a chauffeur, tobacco-eating George Davis as a police secretary & the wonderful Ruth Donnelly as Miss Francis' maid--all uncredited.

William Powell and Kay Francis are both lovely to look at and delightful to listen to in this sparkling comedy, the definitive guide on how to be suave and charming whilst committing armed robberies. Jewel Robbery has always suffered in my eyes from being in the shadow of the ultimate sophisticated comedy from the same year, Trouble in Paradise - a true gem which also had bouquet, but taken on its own merits stands up well. It's relentlessly witty, and deliciously risqué, but maybe a little more verbose than I'd like. The upper class stereotypes depicted, their milieu and moral vacuousness still can ring the bell all these years later, along with the utter submission and innate ineptness of the working class stereotypes around them.

The actual jewellers robbery scene itself went its urbane way a little too long for me, and it was a pity that Powell didn't manage to steal the biggest jewel of his pre-Code career - she would have let him take it!

That all sounds as if I can't like JR but I do, it's just I log these kind of impressions as well as my pleasure in spending a elegant 65 minutes in much more refined company than you could get nowadays. And Francis said "Divine" too, what more could anyone want?

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!

Kay Francis plays a bored rich lady who, frankly, is a bit of a selfish weasel. Despite having a rich and doting husband, she has affairs and is constantly bored (in psychological terms, perhaps she's a Borderline Personality). Then, when she and her husband and lover are caught in the middle of a jewel robbery, she is suddenly smitten by the seemingly gallant thief (William Powell).

In the 1930s, there were several films about gentlemen thieves and the women who loved them. The best of these, by far, was Ernst Lubitsch's TROUBLE IN PARADISE and ONE WAY PASSAGE (also starring William Powell and Kay Francis) was great but unfortunately JEWEL ROBBERY isn't up to the quality of these other films. It's sad, too, as the thief is played by one of my favorite actors, William Powell. He handles the role just fine, but is definitely inhibited by the talkiness of the script and rather confined atmosphere. It really seems obvious when watching it that this was once a play, as there just isn't much action or energy. Because of this, it is watchable but also seems a bit silly and stagy.

By the way, if you see this film, you'll see that Powell gives marijuana to those he robs and they smoke it--not knowing what it is. Seeing them light up and almost instantly become stoned is both shocking because they'd put this in the script and silly because no one gets that goofy that quickly. Because this film was made during the so-called "Pre-Code" era, some Hollywood films definitely pushed the envelope--featuring adultery, drugs, strong sexual innuendo, nudity and questionable language/gestures. The way adultery and drug use are glamorized in this film will definitely surprise many modern viewers, as they probably didn't know they dealt with such topics in the early 30s.

Snappy and very different movie set in Vienna with Kay Francis bored with her husband, her lover, and her life. She confides to a friend that she wishes for some excitement. Enter William Powell, exhibiting characteristics that made him great in the Thin Man series. He is exciting, witty, and charming - if also a thief and the leader of a very large and organized gang. The robbery of the jewel store is something else with Powell convincing the security guard to take out two bags to the car outside and playing Viennese music on a record player to keep the victims calm. To engineer his get away, Powell offers the victims either a smoke from a drugged cigarette (never named) or a short stay in the vault. Kay is offered a third alternative to be taken to the suburbs and deposited unharmed but she elects to stay in the store and not turn in the alarm. After all, Powell has just made her the toast of the social scene for the foreseeable future as the victim of such a daring robbery - why would she give the alarm? A few twists, turns, surprises towards the end, as Kay eventually decides whether to chose excitement or security. The relationship between Kay Francis and William Powell is the movie. Will she take what she has wished for? Lots of overt mention of sleeping around - a rather sad commentary on the state of matrimony in the upper classes at the time. Very good (but not great), very different for a mainstream movie, recommended because it is so different.

William Powell and Kay Francis star in this film whose quality is definitely Lubitsch-like and uncharacteristically sophisticated for Warners. Kay Francis is a very spoiled and already adulterous socialite and Powell is a charming jewel thief. Plot elements include some interesting cigarettes, which according to Powell's character, make you very relaxed, sleepy, and when you wake up, quite hungry! I don't think weed was ever offered so elegantly. Kay is already unfaithful to her current husband, and her friend Helen Vinson, makes it pretty clear that husbands are for buying nice things, but there are other places to seek one's pleasure. Needless to say, Powell is in line to be the next lover. Kay spends the latter half of the film wearing an off-the-shoulder, low-backed dress that defies gravity. I wasn't aware that something that still had sleeves could be so alluring. Apparently, in this style-conscious film, a woman's back was considered the most erotic part of her body. Highly recommended for the fun of it all.

It's like a Carry On film with Sid James going 'phwoor' whilst lustfully leering at at Barbara Windsor and shevsaying 'Come and get it big boy!' but played by the two most sophisticated people in the world.

This is utterly surreal. It's a grown up fairy story about two attractive people who fall, not in love but in lust. Silly, sophisticated and sensual.

This pre-dates the so called 'sex comedies' which happened a couple of decades later with the likes of Doris Day and Rock Hudson but being made in the pre-code era, it's free of those prudish restrictions which later films had to abide by. Fortunately it's also free of the tacky smut which we had to suffer in the seventies. This is good clean fun.

William Powell and Kay Francis play this completely for laughs making their characters ridiculously sophisticated whilst also clearly being desperate to get each other into bed. Because they're who they are, they can get away with this; they're both very funny. William Powell swaggers and Kay Francis smoulders. They're both like volcanoes about to erupt with uncontrollable passion any minute. How they manage to contain themselves is what makes this funny - and this is a funny film.

The story, although completely mad is very enjoyable and quite unique. William Powell distributing joints to the police to get them stoned is not something you've ever seen before. Kay Francis' velvet dress is also something you've never seen before - the word sexy doesn't do that justice - once seen, never forgotten!

The only negative I can think of is the poor supporting cast. Although William Dieterle captures your interest with every frame and gets wonderful performances from his two leads, he seems to have neglected directing the rest of the cast - Helen Vinson for example is awful in this, she doesn't quite seem to get the humour. Whereas Powell and Francis realise that comedy is best achieved by playing it straight, the others try too hard to be funny. Fortunately you don't really notice how bad their acting is because you're distracted by that dress!

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.

This is a sparkling and witty fantasy about a pampered society dame (Kay Francis) who has become aware of the hollowness of her life and a dapper jewel thief (William Powell) who steals her treasures and awakens her from her golden tedium. I call it a "fantasy" because, sadly, we've become too aware of how real crime and criminals work. There's no effort to conceal faces, the robbery crew addresses each other by first name, Powell plays soothing music and engages in witty banter with those he's robbing, but nonetheless it's very entertaining to watch. Another odd aspect of this unusual film is that Powell gives his victims marijuana cigarettes to smoke, to make them passive and jovial. This is one of those pre-code films from that tiny window where sound had come in, the depression was on and the Production Codes weren't re-writing movies like Jewel Robbery. See it when you can. Like the object of it's main character obsession, it is truly a gem.

Charming jewel thief William Powell's gang robs a jewelry store while bored baroness Kay Francis is there, along with her husband and her lover. Francis is immediately attracted to the suave criminal. Later, after the robbery, Powell tracks Francis down and tries to convince her to come away with him.

Chic comedy with a great performance from William Powell. Kay Francis and Helen Vinson are good as a couple of slutty aristocrats. Talky but light and fun. Lots of Pre-Code goodness, such as the use of marijuana cigarettes, partial nudity, and sexual innuendos. Basically half the movie is one long scene (the jewel store robbery), so it's got a stagy feel to it but it's entertaining and never dull. Short runtime helps.

This film is entertaining enough and has its moments. Kay Francis plays a rich woman who enjoys being pampered by her servants and expensive jewelry from her husband. While she's at a jewelers picking up her latest bauble (a 28 carat diamond ring), William Powell strolls in with his crew to lead a very leisurely, dignified robbery. Naturally, the pair make goo-goo eyes at each other, and she's happy when he's not caught. One of the amusing little pre-code laughs is Powell doling out marijuana cigarettes, not referred to by name, but which after a few puffs leave those partaking to get quite silly (and Powell warning that they'll be hungry afterwards).

There's also a fair bit of playful innuendo mixed in, one example of which is her friend telling her of a robbery in which a woman was "stripped right down to her teddies," and that if it happened to her, she would "let the train go on," because "When I'm travelling at the rate of 80 miles per hour, I'm not responsible for my actions." It's made clear that Francis has just broken off one affair, and she says she leads a boring, shallow life in which her schedule is "In the morning a cocktail. In the afternoon a man." And Powell all but propositions Francis when he wants to hide out in her bedroom for an evening, saying that in the morning they'll have a "secret behind them." It's all very light though, and while director William Dieterle creates a near Lubitschean feel in the playfulness of it all, there's something a bit awkward and off in the film's pacing, and the dynamic between Powell and Francis. They're certainly better together in 'One Way Passage' from the same year, but this one's passable.

Kay Francis was never, in my possibly limited experience, so light and charming, even though her character is stupid and immoral.

Her speech defect, which I had never noticed before, was very apparent in this role, but seems to have just added another layer of charm.

William Powell, as the thief who preferred to be called "robber," was his usual self, which is pretty good.

But, all in all, this is a pretty bad movie.

The last shot is a regrettable reminder we have been wasting our time on a movie, and the movie as a whole is, indeed, pretty much a waste of time.

Stupid and immoral people are too much in the news to be also a source of entertainment.

Good directing and pretty good acting do not make up for the absence of any quality in the story.

A Viennese baroness (Kay Francis) is charmed by a suave gentleman thief (William Powell) after being caught in a daring robbery at a jewellers.

Jewel Robbery (what an unoriginal title) has been hailed as a pre-code masterpiece, but I found it a slightly entertaining time-waster. Powell and Francis are good in their roles, and, being only 68 minutes, the film doesn't overstay it's welcome. The film is incredibly pre-code, with infidelity, marijuana and criminals escaping justice.

This was obviously Warner's attempt to make a Lubitsch-like film, but William Dieterle is no Lubitsch. Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise, released the same year and having roughly the same plot, is a much better film. Indeed, Powell and Francis' other 1932 film, One Way Passage, is also much better.

Overall, Jewel Robbery is entertaining, but it definitely could have been better.