"To use another alcohol metaphor, owning the Criterion DVD of Ernst Lubitsch’s endlessly effervescent 1932 masterpiece is like being able to uncork and savor the same bottle of expensive champagne over and over again. A love triangle among social-climbing riffraff and upper-class beauties (call it “The Thief, the Pickpocket, and the Perfume Executive”), with Herbert Marshall torn between the beautiful Miriam Hopkins and the stunning Kay Francis, Trouble in Paradise has the great advantage of being made before the Code. It’s as frank and scintillating as it is urbane and surprisingly touching, and it’s one of the rare American screen comedies to be completely comfortable with European sophistication. Peter Bogdanovich’s video introduction lucidly explains the meaning of the “Lubitsch touch.”"

"Déclassé doubles being kinda a Ripley thing, The American Friend has a trashy yet seductive sister called Ripley’s Game, which, if you haven’t seen it, has John Malkovich and a very GoldenEye vibe. I watch both on regular rotation. But it’s really so wild that The American Friend is the older film, because where Ripley’s Game is like a classic Hollywood cash-in, The American Friend is a radical reinterpretation of the material. It says all the loud parts quiet in a way that deepens the pathos and significance of the Ripley cycle. Rather than being a social-climbing dandy, Dennis Hopper’s Ripley is a mumbling cowboy hipster—it’s maybe his most likable role. And Bruno Ganz’s Jonathan, who can so easily just be a pathetic sucker, is instead an existential hero. But for all its understatement and the arty languid pacing, when the film needs to be—as in the train scene—it’s as taut and calculated as Hitchcock. Oh man, and that stuff about the Beatles and Hamburg is so damn smart. It’s crazy that a director whose work is all over the place could produce a film so totally organic and emotionally satisfying. Honestly it’s not fair."