I love this movie so much

Very well executed

Excellent but underrated film

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

There isn't one sub-standard frame in this delightful romp; it oozes sophistication and could have been made a good decade later than it was. It doesn't get better than Kay Francis and William Powell - and the very next year Powell would team up with Myrna Loy for the first in the Thin Man franchise - who both walk on air through this soufflé which is perfect in all departments starting, of course, with the script by Sampson Raphaelson, albeit adapted from yet another - Liliom, The Shop Around The Corner - Hungarian playwright, through the direction of William Diertle to the brilliant playing of Powell and Francis with first-class support from the rest of the cast. A gem of a jewel robbery.

When I read the reviews of "Jewel Robbery", I must be the only one who really did not like it, perhaps I missed something, I do not know, but cannot stand it. As a Powell fan (Although a bigger Loy fan), I would not expect to find anything by Powell on my all-time baddie list. However, there is not a redeeming element to it. Spoiler ahead: Seeing robberies committed by getting people high on pot, was stupid, as was the way Powell's character('The Robber') gets away and agrees to meet Baroness Teri (Kay Francis) later. I admit I am not a fan of Kay Francis, and I basically avoid her films, because the themes of most of them do not appeal to me. But one film she did "Raffles" with Ronald Colman was similar in plot to this film, but was 1,000,000 times better (As was "Arsene Lupin", with the Barrymore Brothers). As most people know Colman and Powell are very similar actors, very sophisticated and classy, and both did some of their best work as Detectives and in lighter roles, and both had a great role as an amnesiac ("Random Harvest" (Colman)) and ("Love Me Again" (Powell)). The difference is I never saw a Colman film that sucked, and this one and "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" certainly did (And in both times Powell was on the other side of the law). What is frightening about "Jewel Robbery" is not even Loy could have made me like it. Zero stars.

I'm slapping myself in the forehead right now for not figuring it out myself. Those 'happy' cigarettes William Powell was handing out were of the dreaded reefer madness variety. Other reviewers on this board point that out so blatantly that my only defense is that the smokes worked their magic so quickly I never made the connection. Experience you see, ever so limited, never produced the giggles or the night watchman's hysterics so quickly.This is a blast of a film. You never quite get to the level of Cary Grant screwball comedy, but it's wonderful nevertheless. William Powell, playing on the opposite side of the law that Nick Charles did, is just as suave and sophisticated as your intended jewel thief should be. "With your permission Hollander, we're robbing your shop" - really now, how could you refuse a request like that? Especially after verifying that insurance for the merchandise was in full effect.There's another great Powell line (funny, but Powell's character didn't have a name, did he?) - "I'm opposed to the American school of banditry, I studied in Paris". Just the sort of quip to win over the bored Baroness Teri (Kay Francis), whose philandering lifestyle is most evident in this pre-Code film that's just brimming with innuendo and double entendre. Teri's request to The Robber in my summary line above is my favorite, but depending on your demeanor, Powell's remark to the Baroness as he throws her to the pillows is just as illicit - "You're so lovely, it's hard to be brutal with you". Where's that kind of writing today?Maybe I was just lucky to catch this on Turner Classics today, but this is definitely one to see. I'd do it again, preferably with a rewind button handy to do over those situations I described above. It's hard to keep up with a moving target when you don't want to miss anything, sometimes the savoring takes time and reflection.

In Jewel Robbery the kind of character that William Powell plays is a gentleman thief, but he's not a guy like Ronald Colman in Raffles or Cary Grant in To Catch A Thief. He just barges in, holds people at gunpoint and robs them or in this case the establishment they're in.Which makes you kind of wonder why this guy hasn't been caught yet. The answer lies in the story and for the audience in the debonair charm of William Powell.At the time Powell was teamed with Kay Francis in this film. This was the fifth of six films they did together. Both came over from Paramount to Warner Brothers. Before Powell did Manhattan Melodrama at MGM with Myrna Loy and started that screen partnership, he was known for teaming with Kay Francis. The setting for Jewel Robbery, based on a play by Ladislas Fodor is old Vienna of the new Austria which became a more compact country after being shorn of both the Hapsburg monarchy and its Balkan dependents. Francis is in a jewelry store doing a little shopping with as it turns out both her titled husband Henry Kolker and her cabinet member lover Hardie Albright.When Powell and his gang come in to rob the place, Powell's such a charming dude, Francis decides he's far more interesting than either of the two guys she's involved with. He's kind of intrigued with her as well.In the Citadel series Films Of William Powell the criticism of Jewel Robbery is that this film could have been a classic with a director like Ernst Lubitsch. I also think Mitchell Leisen or George Cukor, or Gregory LaCava would have worked wonders with this film. Given some of the double entendre dialog and the ending of this film, it certainly would not have passed muster with The Code which was coming in two more years.As it is, it's a pleasant enough film, but could have been a whole lot better.