Bluebeard's 8th Wife

A romantic comedy directed by Lubitsch. Michael is American, very rich and on holiday in France. In a shop he tries to buy pyjamas but wants only the top; the shop insists on selling the pair. At that moment a woman arrives who wants only the bottom: Nicole. They meet and Michael wants to marry immediately. Then Nicole learns something: he has been married seven times and divorced them all. She marries him but with a plan: she will force this man to value her. The marriage becomes a contest, and the comedy comes from there. The language is Lubitsch's known manner: everything is said by implication, doors close, and the audience completes what is behind them. Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder wrote the screenplay; it is among the first things the pair worked on together. Claudette Colbert plays Nicole and Gary Cooper plays Michael. Edward Everett Horton is in the cast. Ernst Lubitsch directed. An enjoyable example for anyone who likes classical Hollywood comedy and Lubitsch's manner. For a viewer expecting a modern perspective, the conflict it builds around marriage belongs to its period and some resolutions look odd now.