"Design for Living" is billed as a comedy romance with three top stars of the early 1930s. It's based on a play by Noel Coward, but contains hardly any dialog that is funny. This is supposed to be comedy but there were no more than a couple places that I could even manage a chuckle. This film had no zingers or witty remarks.
Did Noel Coward really write most of this dialog? Or, did the very good Ben Hecht really come up with this script? Or, did Ernst Lubitsch really think this was very funny?
It's hard to believe that that combination, and with a great cast of four top performers of the day, wouldn't have the audience rolling in the aisles with laughter. But I didn't even shift in my recliner one time. I first wondered if I had watched the wrong movie, but then reading the reviews I found one by another frequent top reviewer who had a similar reaction. But, he had more knowledge about Coward and his play and said that the author claimed just one of his witty lines was left in the screenplay. That reviewer gives this film one star fewer than my six.
And, I give it six stars because of the interplay between the two male leads. But not for the mostly absent comedy as for the warmth, fun and closeness the two leads enjoy. They truly come across as two long-time friends. Fredric March and Gary Cooper do a super job giving that sense to the film. These are real men who have a real friendship. So, even a competing love for a woman tugs at them. So, my six stars are for those portrayals in what I would call a light drama. But, it's surely not a comedy. Regardless of the studio billing, this is one I think IMDb would much more accurately label a drama, romance, comedy.
Miriam Hopkins is okay and good in her role in this love triangle. But, I agree with a couple other reviewers who didn't see much chemistry between her and either of the two male leads. The closest thing to anything witty in the film comes from Edward E. Horton. But, even his occasional borderline wittiness loses its bite because he has a serious negative aura about him. He is sans the usual Horton persona of a disagreeable person who is also very funny.
I think this film is a classic example of what Mae West said about Hollywood comedies before and after the Motion Picture Production Code. While the studios were more free in what they could show and say before Hollywood began to enforce its code, the code forced Hollywood to write much better comedy scripts. This one doesn't show and say a whole lot, as a "pre-code" film. It implies that Hopkins' Gilda Farrell slipped and slept with each of the leads. If that's what was supposed to be funny, methinks the makers of this film didn't read Coward's play.
It's too bad that such a sterling cast didn't have a witty, funny screenplay for this film. I agree with another reviewer who thinks a new film of this story, with a sharp screenplay and the right actors could make a tremendous comedy.
Did Noel Coward really write most of this dialog? Or, did the very good Ben Hecht really come up with this script? Or, did Ernst Lubitsch really think this was very funny?
It's hard to believe that that combination, and with a great cast of four top performers of the day, wouldn't have the audience rolling in the aisles with laughter. But I didn't even shift in my recliner one time. I first wondered if I had watched the wrong movie, but then reading the reviews I found one by another frequent top reviewer who had a similar reaction. But, he had more knowledge about Coward and his play and said that the author claimed just one of his witty lines was left in the screenplay. That reviewer gives this film one star fewer than my six.
And, I give it six stars because of the interplay between the two male leads. But not for the mostly absent comedy as for the warmth, fun and closeness the two leads enjoy. They truly come across as two long-time friends. Fredric March and Gary Cooper do a super job giving that sense to the film. These are real men who have a real friendship. So, even a competing love for a woman tugs at them. So, my six stars are for those portrayals in what I would call a light drama. But, it's surely not a comedy. Regardless of the studio billing, this is one I think IMDb would much more accurately label a drama, romance, comedy.
Miriam Hopkins is okay and good in her role in this love triangle. But, I agree with a couple other reviewers who didn't see much chemistry between her and either of the two male leads. The closest thing to anything witty in the film comes from Edward E. Horton. But, even his occasional borderline wittiness loses its bite because he has a serious negative aura about him. He is sans the usual Horton persona of a disagreeable person who is also very funny.
I think this film is a classic example of what Mae West said about Hollywood comedies before and after the Motion Picture Production Code. While the studios were more free in what they could show and say before Hollywood began to enforce its code, the code forced Hollywood to write much better comedy scripts. This one doesn't show and say a whole lot, as a "pre-code" film. It implies that Hopkins' Gilda Farrell slipped and slept with each of the leads. If that's what was supposed to be funny, methinks the makers of this film didn't read Coward's play.
It's too bad that such a sterling cast didn't have a witty, funny screenplay for this film. I agree with another reviewer who thinks a new film of this story, with a sharp screenplay and the right actors could make a tremendous comedy.