Design For Living
1 rating since posting on Monday, July 18, 2005|
in France
(submitted by
W. S.
)
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Overall Rating based on 1 rating |
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One of the greatest comedic directors was Ernst Lubitsch. Trained in the winsome eroticism of Post-WW I Vienna, Lubitsche came to Hollywood to make comedies like "Ninotchka" and "To Be Or Not to Be." The film "Design For Living" was his take on the Noel Coward play about a MFM threesome based on a script by the legendary Ben Hecht. Starring Gary Cooper and Frederick March as a pair of American friends trying to "make it" in Paris (Cooper as a painter, March a playwrite), the film is stolen by the sulty Miriam Hopkins as Gilda, the woman who can't decide between them. Loving both, she tries first Cooper, then March, before finally admitting she can't decide. Coop never again regained the comic form of DFL, and it's hard to picture the stern, mirthless hero from "High Noon" vowing with Hopkins and March to keep their trio sexless (the famous "gentlemen's agreement"). Of course, Hopkins escape clause is when she declare's "I'm not gentleman." Recently released for the first time on DVD as part of the "Gary Cooper Collection," the print is clear and bright, the soundtrack without the usual murkiness of old films, and the subject matter as fresh and sexy today as it was in the 30s. - W. S. , posted 07/18/05 |
Design For Living was recommended for:
- Tribe: Flirting Shamelessly
- Tribe: Polyamory
