Nancy Carroll stars in Manhattan Cocktail as Babs, a college coed who dreams of becoming a famous actress. Joining up with her campus chums Fred (Richard Arlen) and Bob (Danny O'Shea), likewise aspiring thespians, Babes heads to Broadway with stars in her eyes. The winsome threesome are quickly disillusioned by the heartless machinations of nasty producer Renov (Paul Lukas) and his harridan wife (Lilyan Tashman). Before the plot proper gets under way, the audience is regaled with a cute "mythological" prologue, featuring the same three leading actors. Manhattan Cocktail was a silent picture, except for two brief musical numbers showcasing Nancy Carroll.

After a tumultuous first marriage, Millie Blake learns to love her newfound independence and drags her feet on the possibility of remarriage. The years pass, and now Millie's daughter garners the attentions of men - men who once devoted their time to her mother.

A comedy which concerns the struggles of an ambitious department store sales clerk who is caught up in New York high society.

到美國只三年，劉別謙已成首席導演，劉別謙筆觸這個詞兒開始出現，仿效導演無數。已是傳奇人物的他，對人家學步毫不在乎，翻翻手閒閒的又示範了一部抄也抄不來的妙品。醫生夫婦恩愛日子平靜如白開水，百無聊賴的太太將跌宕感情昇華在通俗愛情小說裏，直至一天小說中的美男袒胸在對窗出現。那邊廂，醫生碰上美男的豪放妻，卻原來是舊相好。兩對夫婦各懷鬼主意，不忠的結局出人意表。默片的喜劇動感在這裏妙不可言，手杖做偷情藉口這種神來之筆，也許可以叫大家意會什麼叫劉別謙筆觸。

The last of Lubitsch's silent sex comedies is exuberant, fanciful and teasingly elliptical at the same time. Since Paris is synonymous with sophistication and risqué romance, he deliberately cultivates the mood for love with an opening shot of a bed, subverting audience expectations of the obligatory Eiffel Tower. With equal subtlety, he gives his stock and trade subject of marital infidelities inventive treatment, wittily satirising "sheik fever" and other sex-oriented fads in the erotic masquerades between a doctor, his wife, his old flame and her husband. Unlike many Hollywood contemporaries, where sexual innuendoes serve only as evasions and euphemisms, in this film, they are bold announcements of the real thing.

Source: 28th HKIFF