What's remarkable is the combination of sex and politics. One of the ongoing jokes of the movie is the way that political reflexes pop up at singularly inappropriate moments. Yet also, audaciously, Lubitsch calls attention to what is, in fact, going on in Europe at the time, even before the United States had entered the war. Filming began, after all, in November 1941, the month before Pearl Harbor Day.
Richard Brody
August 27, 2013