The Wikipedia entry for "Designing Woman" describes it as a whirlwind romance between two young professionals, but in one respect this is not quite accurate. Neither of the protagonists is particularly young; Lauren Bacall would have been 33 in 1957 and Gregory Peck 41. Moreover, Peck was not the studio's first choice for the role. That would have been either James Stewart or Cary Grant, both several years older than him. I make this point because the film seems to have been quite deliberately conceived as a whirlwind romance between two rather older people who have had longer to develop their own conflicting lifestyles and who therefore have greater difficulties in coming to terms with one another than would a young couple in their early twenties.
Peck plays Mike Hagen, a sports journalist, and Bacall Marilla Brown, a fashion designer. (Hence the title of the film). They meet and fall in love while he is covering a golf tournament in California. Their problems start when they marry and move back to New York, where both are originally from. Mike's interests are sport (naturally enough) and drinking and playing cards with his male friends. Marilla's are fashion (naturally enough) and the theatre. As a result they move in quite different circles of friends, and never the twain shall meet. (When they do, chaos normally ensues). One of Marilla's friends is a very camp theatrical director named Randy, who is used to smuggle in some coded references to homosexuality at a time when direct references would have been forbidden by the Production Code. Although nobody in the film ever accuses Randy of being gay, or even insinuates such a thing, he nevertheless rather defensively insists on letting people know that he is married with children, as if to say "I know what you're all thinking, even if you don't say it!" (The director Vincente Minnelli was himself married with children but nevertheless bisexual).
Another difficulty in their marriage is caused by Marilla's jealousy about Mike's ex-girlfriend Lori. A third plotline concerns Martin Daylor, a corrupt boxing promoter whose activities Mike has exposed in his newspaper and who as a result is threatening Mike. (Mike seems to report on a wide range of sports; besides golf and boxing we learn that he also covers baseball and basketball).
This is in many ways an agreeable film- Peck and Bacall make an attractive couple and the script is often witty, although perhaps not quite deserving of its Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. It is not, however, a film which really stays in the mind- when I recently watched it I realised that I was in fact watching it or the second time and had forgotten all about the first time (which was, admittedly, a number of years ago). It can perhaps best be categorised as enjoyable but frothy trivia, a genre which Hollywood did very well in the fifties. 6/10
Peck plays Mike Hagen, a sports journalist, and Bacall Marilla Brown, a fashion designer. (Hence the title of the film). They meet and fall in love while he is covering a golf tournament in California. Their problems start when they marry and move back to New York, where both are originally from. Mike's interests are sport (naturally enough) and drinking and playing cards with his male friends. Marilla's are fashion (naturally enough) and the theatre. As a result they move in quite different circles of friends, and never the twain shall meet. (When they do, chaos normally ensues). One of Marilla's friends is a very camp theatrical director named Randy, who is used to smuggle in some coded references to homosexuality at a time when direct references would have been forbidden by the Production Code. Although nobody in the film ever accuses Randy of being gay, or even insinuates such a thing, he nevertheless rather defensively insists on letting people know that he is married with children, as if to say "I know what you're all thinking, even if you don't say it!" (The director Vincente Minnelli was himself married with children but nevertheless bisexual).
Another difficulty in their marriage is caused by Marilla's jealousy about Mike's ex-girlfriend Lori. A third plotline concerns Martin Daylor, a corrupt boxing promoter whose activities Mike has exposed in his newspaper and who as a result is threatening Mike. (Mike seems to report on a wide range of sports; besides golf and boxing we learn that he also covers baseball and basketball).
This is in many ways an agreeable film- Peck and Bacall make an attractive couple and the script is often witty, although perhaps not quite deserving of its Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. It is not, however, a film which really stays in the mind- when I recently watched it I realised that I was in fact watching it or the second time and had forgotten all about the first time (which was, admittedly, a number of years ago). It can perhaps best be categorised as enjoyable but frothy trivia, a genre which Hollywood did very well in the fifties. 6/10