Design For Living is one work that definitely deserves another film version if for no other reason than to finally give the movie-going public what Noel Coward's vision in 1933 really was. All we got from this film is a title and the idea of a play about a menange a trois. Noel Coward said that one line of his dialog also got into this film. No wonder he had such an aversion to Hollywood.
Gary Cooper artist and Fredric March playwright are roommates and both unsuccessful commercially at their art. One day they meet another artist on the train who sketches them while they're taking a snooze and said artist Miriam Hopkins is taken with both of them. In fact so taken that she can't make up her mind which one she really prefers. The easy solution is take both of them and she does, though the relationship is most platonic. But men will be men and hormones will do their nasty work.
For a little stability in her life Hopkins takes up with Edward Everett Horton and stability he brings her with the side efrect of dull. Even a platonic thing with March and Cooper is better than marriage with Horton. Nevertheless his fuss budget character is probably the best thing about this film version of Design For Living. Lubitsch's best touch in this film is Horton going through his file cabinet and finding his marriage contract under "M" past maintenance bill and masking tape or something like that. Tells you all you know about Horton's priorities and his business like approach to marriage.
If Ernst Lubitsch had directed a faithful version of Design For Living with Noel Coward it probably would be a classic. Coward's wit needs all the preserving it can get. With March and Cooper you got a pair of Hollywood's best leading men who did good with the antiseptic script they got.
Another version of Design For Living will contain more than subject idea and a title. Somebody out there start casting for a remake.
Gary Cooper artist and Fredric March playwright are roommates and both unsuccessful commercially at their art. One day they meet another artist on the train who sketches them while they're taking a snooze and said artist Miriam Hopkins is taken with both of them. In fact so taken that she can't make up her mind which one she really prefers. The easy solution is take both of them and she does, though the relationship is most platonic. But men will be men and hormones will do their nasty work.
For a little stability in her life Hopkins takes up with Edward Everett Horton and stability he brings her with the side efrect of dull. Even a platonic thing with March and Cooper is better than marriage with Horton. Nevertheless his fuss budget character is probably the best thing about this film version of Design For Living. Lubitsch's best touch in this film is Horton going through his file cabinet and finding his marriage contract under "M" past maintenance bill and masking tape or something like that. Tells you all you know about Horton's priorities and his business like approach to marriage.
If Ernst Lubitsch had directed a faithful version of Design For Living with Noel Coward it probably would be a classic. Coward's wit needs all the preserving it can get. With March and Cooper you got a pair of Hollywood's best leading men who did good with the antiseptic script they got.
Another version of Design For Living will contain more than subject idea and a title. Somebody out there start casting for a remake.