Lubitsch wants to implicate the spectator in the joke: the sly, ebullient Chevalier breaks the fourth wall early in the film, addressing the audience, men and women, making them co-conspirators.

...a decent-enough endeavor that generally does feel like it should be much, much better...

The argument is reduced to exposing how the intrigues of a coquettish lady are futile in undoing the happy movie marriage between Maurice [Chevalier] and Jeanette [MacDonald].

Pure movie gold of the most sophisticated kind.