Jewel Robbery

William Dieterle's 1932 film is a short, light crime comedy set in Vienna. A bored baron's wife has stopped caring about the jewels her husband buys her, and the courteous thief who robs a jeweller's in broad daylight becomes the first thing to interest her. The film stages the robbery not as suspense but as flirtation, and the talk between the two characters is the real body of the story. It belongs to the period before Hollywood's censorship rules were strictly enforced, and that freedom is plain in the writing: desire outside marriage, a drug joke and an ending that does not side with the law all sit comfortably in it. The pairing of William Powell and Kay Francis carries the lightness. It runs a little over an hour. Who it's for: viewers who like pre-code Hollywood and comedy built on dialogue. Who it's not for: anyone expecting a heist film driven by tension or plot.