In 18th-Century Russia, the Czar, Paul, is surrounded by murderous plots and trusts only Count Pahlen. Pahlen wishes to protect his friend, the mad king, but because of the horror of the king's acts, he feels that he must remove him from the throne.

Against her better judgement, happily married Jill Baker is persuaded to see a popular psychoanalyst about her psychosomatic hiccups. Soon, she's disillusioned about husband Larry; and one day in the doctor's waiting room she meets pianist Alexander Sebastian, who's even more confused than she is. Can this marriage be saved? Larry has a plan that is pure Lubitsch...

Catherine the Great falls in love with an army officer who is plotting against her.

Young Prince Karl Heinrich has spent his entire life behind the palace gates protected from the world. He has been raised in a melancholy atmosphere of strict discipline and duty, yet he often looks out at the frolics of youths and maidens who live beyond the walls. When he passes his exams, Karl is sent to Heidelberg to complete his studies. It is a heady new world of brew, song, and comradeship. Karl falls in love with Kathi, a pretty barmaid, and she reciprocates. But can the love survive their disparate backgrounds? Will Karl ever find happiness or will duty deny it to him?

1930 film by Ernst Lubitsch

An amorous lieutenant is forced to marry a socially awkward princess, though he tries to keep his violin-playing girlfriend on the side.

In 1861, Countess Angelina, ruler of Bergamo in southeastern Europe, is at a loss when invaded by a Hungarian army. Her lookalike ancestress Francesca, who saved a similar situation 300 years before, comes to life from a portrait to help her descendant. Complicating factor: the newlywed countess feels strangely drawn to the handsome Hungarian invader, Colonel Teglash, who commandeers the castle to give his exhausted soldiers a rest, but later falls in love with the owner of the place.
The film was Lubitsch's first musical project since directing The Merry Widow for MGM in 1934. It proved to be his last film. Eight days after principal photography began, he died of a heart attack, and Otto Preminger, who had completed A Royal Scandal when Lubitsch was forced to withdraw due to illness in 1944, took over the reins. He stipulated sole screen credit should go to Lubitsch "as a mark of respect and admiration for the departed master."