Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

lasttimeisaw A minor Lubitsch fluff transposes Noël Coward's eponymous play onto the celluloid (but in only bare-bones terms), DESIGN FOR LIVING is a witty but stuffy comedy hammers out an uncharacteristic denouement for a risqué three-way relationship between two men and a woman, a progenitor of François Truffaut's JULES AND JIM (1962).Three Americans in Paris, best friends and roomies, struggling artists Tom Chambers (March) and George Curtis (Cooper) both are swept off their feet by a chic girl Gilda Farrell (Hopkins), who reciprocates them with isometric amount of affection, before soon a platonic ménage-à-trois under the same roof is propounded and accepted with a tripartite agreement, only sabotaged when one party is away in London for his burgeoning playwright career, the remaining two becomes an item, occasioning a crack in two men's friendship, and a seesawing Gilda has only one exit route when she is again, impelled to make the impossible choosing, leaving both and hurriedly marries to her long-time admirer Max Plunkett (Horton, utterly jolly in his priggish, business-oriented persona), which turns out to be an exasperating mistake on her part. It is a jocose folie-à-trois panning out like a heady and mellifluous minuet, predominantly confined itself within interior spaces, aptly conceals its hanky-panky business off the screen (released within a whisker of the advent of the notorious Hays Code), but revels in its proto-screwball faux-naïf characterization to the hilt. The trio leads are all up for it, although acting side by side, a debonair March fairly eclipses an impetuous Cooper in his sonorous diction and unperturbed demeanor, but the cynosure here is a ripsnorting Hopkins, exerts her high-wire balancing act between two emblems of idealized American masculinity and only comically falls prey of her own indecision in the slapdash third act, as a matter of fact, Lubitsch cunningly expurgates all the frills and trimmings from his camera (including a climactic brawl, vanishingly completed in a trice), less is more, this blithe rom-com once again bears witness to Lubitsh's master-class aptitude of economic elegance under the Studio system.

tavm I watched this movie on Disc 1 of the Gary Cooper collection DVD set I ordered from Netflix. This was a wonderful surprise of a movie I barely heard of though, of course, I know of the reputation of its director, Ernst Lubitsch. Adapted from Noel Coward's play but fully rewritten by Ben Hecht, this was a hilarious tale of a menage-a-trios between Gary Cooper, Fredric March, and Mariam Hopkins, three Americans living in Paris. Hopkins works for Edward Everett Horton who fancies her himself but rarely gets anywhere with her until...I'll stop there and just say that I loved every minute of it with those witty lines and occasional visual touches. Really, all I'll say now is Design for Living is such a joy to watch!

musicjune-957-115337 Sure it's great. A fun movie with a grand script and funny refreshing silly dialog. Wonderful actors who are really having a good time and keep in mind that Edward Horton was a very well known swish but very much well liked and respected. Coop and Fred March and Miriam Hopkins most assuredly knew this at the time and that,to me, makes their vocal interplay all the more delightful. This flick is pre-code and keeping this in mind makes this movie even more interesting. Noel Coward was a great one also and a true fag. Miriam Hopkins is beautiful and when you put it all together you've got to love this one as I hope you all will and should.

lionel-libson-1 Lubitsch is always entertaining, and "Design For Living" is no exception. The casting is perfect, with Cooper establishing a comedic capability. The sets are threadbare but consistent with the zeitgeist of this variation on "La Boheme".Horton, as usual, is an ideal foil for the free spirits around him.I view this film as a "gay" adventure, using Miriam Hopkins as a woman in drag.Seen in this light, the sex in question takes on a different inference. Here, traditional marriage, children, etc., become irrelevant. The same could be said about "Breakfast at Tiffany's" or any of Joe Orton's plays.The script, Ben Hecht's rewrite of Noel Coward, occasionally slows to a wordy crawl, but a piece of comic action or verbal duelling saves the day.Near the end of the film, in a climactic argument between Hopkins and Horton, Gilda blurts what sounded to my timeworn ears like a classic expostulation. lacking a DVD to stop and replay, I'll leave it to the IMDb authorities to verify or refute. It was an entertaining enough film to get me to switch from the Yankee/Rangers game.