Film buffs pride themselves on knowing the “Lubitsch touch” when they see it, and surely they see it in this first “talking picture” by the master of wit and charm.

Not only that, but here we have the movie that made American stars out of the Parisian showman Maurice Chevalier and Philadelphia’s 26-year-old Jeanette MacDonald in the first of four musicals they made together. Perhaps you are a MacDonald and Nelson Eddy fan, but pardon the cliché: for my money Chevalier makes Eddy look stiff as a board.

He’s cast as a womanizing military attache; she’s the man-hungry queen of Sylvania. And it’s one of those battles of the sexes that only seems more clever as the decades pass. Hard to believe we’re coming up on 100 years.

The songs by Victor Schertzinger and Clifford Grey include one of MacDonald’s signatures, “Dream Lover.” A few of them verge into operetta land, but she and Chevalier are such good actors that they avoid the sentimental pitfalls.

I should add that this film was made before the Hays moral code was enforced, so Lubitsch had the latitude to make it wickedly suggestive.

That he did, and when you add his many other gifts this director must be acclaimed as one of the pioneers of the movie musical.