Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

jotaemesg I love Lubitsch, I worship the golden age and I am a great fan of the early talkies and the jazz age, but this film has been a sad disappointment to me. The technical achievements are there, indeed. The condition of the film is astoundingly good. The players are charming. The music is pleasant. Some gags are funny, if not that witty. This is how far I go, for no more praise can be given to this banal story about a lieutenant loving a fiddle player and being harassed by a princess. The whole plot is not only silly, as one of the reviewers said, but also extremely reactionary. It really spoiled my evening. And by the way, what's the fun about a tailor not being paid for his expensive clothes? It simply doesn't look Lubitsch.

evanston_dad I think I've seen my fill of Ernst Lubitsch's early movies starring Maurice Chevalier.I discovered Lubitsch's later films -- "Ninotchka," "The Shop Around the Corner," "To Be or Not to Be" -- first, and instantly fell in love with them. Now, watching his earlier works, it's clear that he matured as a film-maker. His early musicals are all right, I suppose, if you're in the mood for them, but they're missing the trace of sweet melancholy that make his later films so unique.But mostly, I've discovered that I just dislike Maurice Chevalier. He's so effeminate and just so, well, creepy, that I have trouble enjoying the movie around him. In "The Smiling Lieutenant," he's nearly always on screen, but one of the only times he's not, during a musical number in which Claudette Colbert and Miriam Hopkins sing about spicing up Hopkins' wardrobe of lingerie, ends up being the highlight of the film.Grade: C

Rob Hendrikx Before I saw this film I read all the reviews on this site. And then I saw the movie...and I was wondering what all those other reviewers had been taking... The film lasts about 85 minutes, and that's too long by half. I always hated Chevalier's awful accent (half the time you're straining to try and make sense of what he's saying), but as a rule his lighthearted acting makes it bearable. Not here. Hopkins as the princess and Barbier as the king are worse than caricatures and there are some very xenophobic remarks here and there. But the worst is...Claudette's performance. I love, no I adore Claudette Colbert. She's by far my favourite actress of the first half of the 20th century (Michelle Pfeiffer took her crown in the latter part). But what she's showing us here, is shameful. She's overacting as if she's in a (talking) movie for the first time. For example when she's leaving Chevalier's apartment, and she's leaving the key. Her facial expressions are way too pathetic and remind me of the silent movies, when everything had to be over the top to convey the meaning. This is a movie to see once, then quickly forget about. 2 stars out of 10.

bkoganbing It must have been that the movie-going public loved seeing Maurice Chevalier in those tight uniforms, he seemed to be in them in most of those early talkies he made for American studios. Only now and again would Chevalier play something as prosaic as a tailor.He's a guardsman again in The Smiling Lieutenant. But with the Austrian Empire at peace all the men have a lot of idle time on their hands. Maurice is busy planning his latest campaign when a friend played by Charlie Ruggles asks him with that Chevalier charm to intercede for him with a female violinist in Claudette Colbert.Maurice does, but the sly rogue gets her for himself. And then he's put on duty to greet the visiting royal house of Flausenthurm which includes King George Barbier and Princess Miriam Hopkins.In one of those priceless Ernst Lubitsch moments, Chevalier while at attention spots Colbert across the street and throws a few knowing smiles and winks. But when the coach carrying Barbier and Hopkins es, Hopkins intercepts one of those winks and considers it an uncalled for act upon a royal personage.In fact she likes what she sees and persuades Daddy to get the Emperor who's her uncle to part with Chevalier. Of course Maurice the old campaigner likes the idea of being married to the dowdy Hopkins if he's got Claudette on the side.I won't go any farther, but as you can see just by what I tell you The Smiling Lieutenant is a film made before the Code was put in place. In fact the naughtiness of films like these is what got Hollywood the Code. But it's what also makes it hold up very well for today's audience.No big song hits come from The Smiling Lieutenant, but Chevalier delivers what's there with his Gallic charm. Even Hopkins and Colbert grab a chorus or two with Maurice. Music is by Oscar Straus with English lyrics by Clifford Grey.This is before the Code so you have some freedom as to how this film will end, the parameters the Code put in place are no longer there. I should say however that Miriam Hopkins gets a makeover that Paul Venoit and his team would envy.