Jewel Robbery

“In the morning a cocktail, in the afternoon a man, in the evening Veronal.” Such is the routine of bored Viennese frau Kay Francis, who finds that neither the trinkets her rich husband buys her nor the affairs she has with young diplomats satisfy her craving for excitement. Then she meets gentleman jewel thief William Powell, who robs jewelry stores with impeccable finesse. Instead of bopping inconvenient witnesses over the head, he gives them marijuana cigarettes and they float off into giggly oblivion. He pockets the heroine’s ring, breaks into her house and kidnaps her—a courtship in crime.

Jewel Robbery bears obvious comparison to Trouble in Paradise, which also stars Kay Francis and equates seduction with sophisticated burglary. Both films delicately blend the more risqué innuendo inherent in this equation with an intoxicating depiction of romance as a duel of wits and skill, a match in both senses of the word. With her long, willowy body, sleek cap of black hair and droopy, twilight eyes, Kay Francis was art deco in the flesh. As the “wobber” who steals her heart, Powell is so perfectly, so ardently debonair that he makes charm into something not superficial but oddly vital. Gallantry is the film’s moral imperative—as when Francis realizes Powell has seen her undressing, and he assures her with a graceful bow, “You were everything I anticipated.”

This weightless enchantment extends even to sartorial matters. The latter part of the film might be re-titled, The Mystery of the Gravity-Defying Negligee, or, What’s Holding Up Kay Francis’s Dress?

by Imogen Sara Smith