In this exquisite gem of a comedy, Herbert Marshall (Gaston) and Miriam Hopkins (Lilly) are outlaw lovers—jewel thieves masquerading as European sophisticates, and relishing the charade. The film is a masterpiece of Lubitsch style, in its love triangle (enter Kay Francis) played out in a confounding architecture of space; its verbal wit, taking full advantage of polyglot Europe; and its tossed-off politics (no one fails to mention “times like these”). But Trouble in Paradise also exemplifies a quality in films that would soon be lost with the Code, what James Harvey (in Romantic Comedy) calls “that community of cleverness that exists not only between the leading characters in the film but between the film and its audience....Gaston and Lilly not only rob(bing) other people but each other as well-simultaneously copping feels and property.”
—Judy Bloch