I’ve got a theory that movies that feature a stage play or a theater troupe in their narrative are just pretexts for bombast, but this ingenious, fleetfooted comedy is a brilliant exception. Blessed with the “Lubitsch touch,” it sees theater for its inherent silliness and drags it out into the coldness of wartime to see what it makes of itself. The results are side splittingly hilarious, even eighty years later, as confirmed by my twelve year old daughter who watched it with me for the first time and found herself cackling throughout. A true masterpiece.