The Smiling Lieutenant

After the stumble that was Monte Carlo, Ernst Lubitsch comes roaring back with The Smiling Lieutenant, a delightful look at a Viennese love triangle that crosses class boundaries, ending with a surprisingly moral take on the pair of relationships at the film’s core. It’s about two people forced into a situation through coincidence and some light farce, learning to bridge the gap between them to find mutual attraction and, perhaps, even love. Like the rest of Lubitsch’s best work, and even so...