The satire of Ernst Lubitsch permeates this musical from the most minute of background noises to the plot itself: a story of romance vs. royalty, with Maurice Chevalier caught smiling in the middle; Claudette Colbert on the side of the people and love, as a performer in a Viennese beer garden; and Miriam Hopkins as the infinitely less desireable but unavoidable Princess Anna of Flausenthurm. The plot makes its final twist on a purely cosmetic point, and this is the beauty of Ernst Lubitsch.