Bluebeard's 8th Wife

Ernst Lubitsch directs the screwball romance Bluebeard's 8th Wife (1938), free to watch online on iFILM, from a script by Charles Brackett and a young Billy Wilder — their first job for the master of innuendo.

American millionaire Michael Brandon is about to marry for the eighth time, and his bride is Nicole, daughter of a bankrupt French marquis. When she learns on her wedding day about the seven wives before her, she refuses to be just another number. Her counterattack runs on separate bedrooms, calculated coldness and a campaign of nerves built to break a man used to getting his way. Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper trade the lead blows, while David Niven and Edward Everett Horton stir up trouble at the edges.

This is Lubitsch in his signature register, where a closed door or a held pause lands harder than any punchline. The whole thing rides on two stubborn people daring each other to surrender first. A light, elegant Paramount comedy for anyone who likes old Hollywood played in half-tones. Stream Bluebeard's 8th Wife (1938) online on iFILM.