Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

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.

"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.

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.

William Powell is responsible for a huge element of our loves, the smoothness that has comic irony behind it. He invented it. There are a few of his movies that are essential viewing, but those are after the government thugs decided what movies should be like in "moral" terms.So you only have a brief window between the time that talkies got going seriously and the code pummeled them into different channels than the world naturally wanted them to go.This is the best Powell from that window. Pot. Overt sex of the most promiscuous and opportunistic kind. An incredible garment. A very literal wink at the camera as the rich man's kept woman goes off on her jaunt for satisfaction and sexual adventure. The notion of theft as morally acceptable. Police as buffoons, albeit European police.Powell invented something important, but it relied on the notion of conspiracy. The most cinematic of conspiratorial devices are sexual cheats. The appearance of a speech defect in the sexy actress only endears and amplifies the effect.So without this small window, this period of rapid evolution, we wouldn't have the riches we have today.A fun movie. An important one, too.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.