User reviews

In this surprisingly risqué film made before the Hays code, two men and a woman share an apartment in Paris and talk openly about sex. It's fun to watch, thanks to the witty and sophisticated dialog of Noel Coward, the screenplay by Ben Hecht, and of course the masterful direction of Lubitsch. March is wonderful as a struggling playwright. Hopkins has one of her best roles as a free-loving woman who loves two men but marries a third. Lubitsch elicits a fine comedic performance from Cooper as a hot-tempered artist. In a typical role, Horton plays a stuffed shirt. There's no music, which could make things seem static, but Lubitsch keeps it moving at a breezy pace.

I bought the Gary Cooper collection because of "Design for Living". It didn't disappoint me. This movie is classy, it's full of wit and sexually free. I found the plot intriguing, the set excellent, the costumes fine and Lubitsch inspired together with Ben Hecht (lovely and smart screenplay).

The movie shows 4 actors only, which could be considered its strength if the actors were all good. 1 out of 4 is good and 2 out of 4 are really good. 1 out of 4 has got nothing to do with such environments, dialogs and sophisticated comedy. Gary Cooper does not fit to me. He's a sort of amazing good looking and so dashing statue to look at. Nothing more. He just doesn't look comfortable in acting spoiling intellectual shades. He doesn't work to me.

Miriam Hopkins is good, she's mischievous, charming and funny. She plays the free woman with intelligence, combining sensuality and brain. Audience - even the male one - does understand why she can't choose between the two guys and she conquers it. Every woman would like to be her; that's the message she strongly brought on the screen: being free of living life the way she desires.

Edward Everett Horton is perfect, hilarious and very elegant. He's the right choice to play Plunkett Inc. and he didn't let it down. He IS Plunkett Inc.!

Fredric March is so charming, sophisticated, sexy and so right for Thomas. He does much better here than in other movies (e.g. Anna Karenina) which could seem more suitable for him. He's perfect for Lubitsch so much and his performance is a top one. He's a fine comedian too, he's measured and passionate at the same time and he's really handsome. His sensuality is made up either by intellectual attitude or a physical one.

Don't know why he's been forgotten, a wonderful actor like he is. Can anybody tell me?

I do suggest to get this movie and to enjoy it since it's really a nice touch in our collection. We do need nice and elegant touches. Especially nowadays.

This was one of the movies I was so sure was going to be stupid and annoying but it turned out to be such fine comedy I've already watched it three times in the past week or two. So many good lines. Tom writes a play called Goodnight Bassington - a comedy in about three acts with a tragic ending. George paints Lady Godiva on a bicycle, despite the fact that a bicycle seat IS a little hard on her historical background. Gilda says that she went to see the above-mentioned painting of Lady Godiva with a friend. "She loved it. We haven't spoken since," Gilda tells George, who begins to pout. He does a fair amount of pouting throughout the film.

Eaglebauer also makes for some fine humour in some scenes near the end, but we never get to see the man. We only hear him bellowing out a joyous song about "falling leaves and fading trees! Goodbye, summer, goodbye!"

But besides all that this really wacky movie is a delight and I sure wish they'd re-release it because it's so good.

So. There's only one thing I have to say to you. Immorality may be fun, but it's not fun enough to replace one hundred per cent virtue and three square meals a day.

Few films have had as much nonsense written about them as Ernst Lubitsch's "Design For Living." From the moment it was released, it was criticized for rewriting Noel Coward's then-daring play (Ben Hecht, the screenwriter, said: "There's only one line of Coward's left in the picture--see if you can find it!"); for casting Americans in parts that had originally been played by Coward, Alfred Lunt, and Lynn Fontanne; for toning down the gay subtexts of Coward's play. All that is, of course, completely irrelevant; the question is not whether the play is faithful to the source material, but whether it's good. And it is, it is.

There are flaws in the film. This was one of the first times Lubitsch had made a movie with little or no music on the soundtrack; previously, in his musicals and his sublime "Trouble In Paradise," he had used background music to cover up potential dead spots and carry the film along. Here there is none of that, with the result that some of the early scenes seem oddly paced. But the wit of the script (written by Hecht but, as always with Lubitsch, carefully supervised and contributed to by the director himself) and the appeal of the performers (more about them later) pull the film through the occasional rough spots, and the second half of the movie is just about perfect.

Another idiotic thing that is often said about "Design For Living" is that Lubitsch and Hecht rewrote Coward due to fear of the censors. In fact, the censors must have had a heart attack when they saw "Design," for this is one of the most sexually frank of the pre-Code Hollywood movies; premarital sex, cohabitation, adultery and frigidity are all clearly portrayed-- but, as always with Lubitsch, they are implied rather than shown. Lubitsch's trademark door and blackout gags are here, and they are hilarious; again, it's not Noel Coward--it's Lubitsch, the cinema's greatest comic filmmaker at the peak of his powers.

But there's something else here that isn't found in most Lubitsch films, and it comes from Ben Hecht, whose cynical, fast-talking, very American style of writing gives the characters a flavor quite unlike the more Continental wit of Lubitsch's usual heroes. (This is also one of the few Lubitsch films where the lead characters are American rather than European.) Critics have sometimes complained that Hecht's somewhat inelegant style was unworthy of either Coward or Lubitsch. Again, I disagree; the moments of Hechtian farce (like the hilarious party scene) are beautifully handled by Lubitsch and turn the film into a forerunner of screwball comedy, the place where Continental charm and hard-driving Americanism meet.

Now to the actors. The "British is Better" attitude of many critics made it inevitable that Lubitsch's American cast would be pilloried. Again, this is not Noel Coward and a Noel Coward style of acting wouldn't work in this context. All the leading players are actually quite wonderful: Miriam Hopkins, one of Lubitsch's favorite actresses, has the best role and gives a marvelously energetic performance as the flighty, pretentious free spirit who tries to substitute art for sex; Gary Cooper is at the height of his youthful charm, with a surprisingly light comic touch and great teamwork with Fredric March. March, who can often be heavy-handed in film comedy, is here charming and funny; it's a tribute to Lubitsch that he got such a genial performance out of him. And, of course, there's Edward Everett Horton, one of Hollywood's finest character actors in one of his finest roles.

If you know and love the Noel Coward play, don't expect this movie to be a faithful adaptation. Think of it as an original work of comedic art that happens to utilize some of the story elements of Coward's play. It's not Noel Coward; it's a splendid romantic farce that, like all great comedies, has serious themes underneath the fun: Sexual freedom, male vs. female roles in society, art, love, friendship. So see it (if you can; it's not on video, alas). It's not Noel Coward, it's Ernst Lubitsch, and despite the occasional flaws, it's Lubitsch at his best.

Intelligent script, witty dialogue, sexy stars, sophisticated story, deft direction…What more can I say? It's Lubitsch and Paramount at its Pre-Code best! This was another of those "vintage" films of which you had the chance of reading a lot about, but before Universal released "The Gary Cooper Collection", where it's included, you had nowhere to watch it. Of course, I bought promptly the aforementioned set.

The picture tells the story of free-spirited Gilda Farrell, a young lady who works at a Parisian Advertising Agency, managed by that great seasoned pro, Edward Everett Horton, who by chance meets on board a train, struggling, penniless, artists George Curtis, a painter (Gary Cooper) and Thomas Chambers, a playwright (Fredric March), in which may be one of the most "risqué" plots of all the Pre-Code Era, dealing openly with the pros and cons of a mènage-a-trois.

Miriam Hopkins portrays the deliciously mischievous Gilda, giving a top, tongue-in-cheek performance, looking absolutely beautiful and full of glow from within; it's really in her films directed by Lubitsch that her appeal shines at its most and she looks at her attractive-best.

Fredric March is good too as the "more down-to-earth-but-nevertheless-madly-in-love" playwright, who lives with buddy Gary Cooper in a miserable tenement, until Miriam Hopkins comes in scene and to "the rescue".

But the revelation, in my opinion, is Gary Cooper; after seeing him in many of his 1930s films, I feel that I like him best in the variety of roles he got to play in those years: a young idealist in "Peter Ibbetson", a sensitive soldier in "A Farewell to Arms", a sophisticated artist in this one, etc. He really was a good actor from the beginning of his "talkies" career (I haven't seen his Silents, so I cannot give an opinion), showing much skill and depth in his interpretations. In this film he plays excellently opposite such strong talents as Miriam Hopkins and Fredric March, absolutely "a la par".

In all, a highly enjoyable film. Smart Entertainment. A must.

Delightful even if more Ben Hecht than Noel Coward. The "menage a trois" has real brains, wit and magic. All due to the sensational chemistry between Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins and, of course, the unmistakable Lubitch touch. I was going to say that the film seems written today but the sad truth is there is nobody today that could write with this extraordinary elegance. Frediric March is masculine and volcanic, Gary Cooper feminine and irresistible and Miriam Hopkins, a sensational modern comedienne. As if this wasn't enough, Edward Everett Horton as Mr Wrong. The scene in which Hopkins compares Cooper and March to hats is one of my all time favorites.

While traveling through France, the playwright Thomas B. 'Tom' Chambers (Fredric March) and his best friend, the painter George Curtis (Gary Cooper) meet Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins) and they fall in love with her. Gilda is "protected" by the wealthy Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton) and Tom and George are losers, but she cannot decide between them who could be her boyfriend. So she proposes a gentleman's agreement where they would be friends without having sex. She decides to criticize their works and they become successful. But will their platonic relationship work?

"Design for Living" is a movie with a female character ahead of time. Actually the sexy story is a Pre-Code Hollywood that became effective 01 July 1934. The plot has sexual freedom, adultery and even a possible threesome but is naive in the present days. There are many funny situations and this movie is a delightful entertaining. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil) "Sócios no Amor" ("Partners in Love")

Miriam Hopkins finds herself in love with both Gary Cooper and Fredric March (who can blame her?), so she does what any sensible Pre-Code woman would do: she decides to live with both of them!

It's a tribute to movie audiences of the early 1930s that a sophisticated comedy like Design for Living could a.) Get produced, and b.) Be a success at the box office. The dumbing down of current films means that the delicious innuendo in Design for Living would go over the head of most of today's audience.

The key to the Lubitsch Touch was in the perfect timing of physical gestures and the delivery of the lines. Trouble in Paradise and Design for Living were the best in this respect. Personally, I prefer the lack of music in Design for Living. I think it dates the film less than Lubitsch's other efforts.

I don't mind that Ben Hecht wrote most of the film's dialog rather than Noel Coward, who wrote the original play. All I know is that the dialog is very very funny and quite naughty, making this the ultimate Pre-Code film.

Miriam Hopkins could do no wrong in a Lubitsch film, and her work here is brilliant. She's intelligent and uncompromisingly honest. Her leading men, Gary Cooper and Fredric March, are both sexy and hilarious. Gary Cooper is a particular revelation, displaying a flair for comedy that is quite unexpected. As Cooper's friend and rival for the affection of Hopkins, March is also very funny, which comes as no surprise after his brilliant parody of John Barrymore in The Royal Family of Broadway (1930).

Prepare to laugh yourself silly during what may be the funniest film ever made.

For me, of course, there would be no choice. A young Gary Cooper - talk about a dream walking.

Noel Coward's "Design for Living" was a play Coward wrote for himself and Lunt and Fontanne to star in, concerning a woman, Gilda, who can't decide between two young men and best friends in love with her, Tom and George.

So the three decide to live together platonically. Tom leaves to work on his play, and while he's away, George and Gilda sleep together. Later on, alone with Tom, she sleeps with him, and George catches them together. Then Gilda makes a decision.

Only one line from the original play was retained for the film. Though it is precode, the sex is inferred. Given the Lubitsch touch, it's a delightful, sexy comedy with pretty Miriam Hopkins as the winsome Gilda, Fredric March as Tom, a playwright, and Gary Cooper as George, an artist.

The three young, attractive actors under Lubitsch's direction really make the film and situation sing.

March was never much for comedy, though he does an okay job. Hopkins was a wonderful actress with many Broadway credits before getting into films, and Cooper was just so darned gorgeous I have no idea how he was except my impression is that he was very good. Had I been Hopkins - no choice! A charming film.

An extremely racy pre-Code entry that stars Fredric March, Gary Cooper and Miriam Hopkins as one attractive menage-a-trois.

The three play Americans living in France. Hopkins falls in love with both men and can't decide which one she wants more, so she has them both at turns, switching allegiances to whichever man she happens to be with in the moment. The film is very frankly sexual -- the gist is that all three characters are horny as hell and their passions are driven far more by lust than by any real love. The novelty of such an old film being so obviously naughty masks the fact that neither the story nor characters are very fleshed out, and the dramatic conflict, which can be reduced to a woman trying to decide whether or not she likes either man enough to be faithful to him, isn't overly compelling. It is refreshing for a change to see a woman in the driver's seat when it comes to her sexual dalliances, and a film that allows a female character to embrace her own sexual needs without shame or the obligation to give her a comeuppance. But this isn't a Lubitsch classic on the order of another Hopkins vehicle ("Trouble in Paradise") let alone the masterpieces "Ninotchka" and "The Shop Around the Corner."

Grade: B

I'm not a big fan of the Lubitsch Touch. This, which I hadn't seen in 20 years, I think is my favorite.

The recent Broadway revival of the Noel Coward play, which was supposedly very ooh-la-la and daring, was a bust. Interminable and misguided.

One problem was that the female lead was made very cold. In the movie, Miriam Hopkins is just right: pretty, seductive, witty.

Gary Cooper is sublime. He was a great comedian -- equally good in "Desire," the delightful movie with Dietrich that Lubitsch produced and supposedly had a big hand in directing. Too bad he changed gears so drastically and became the strong, silent Western hero he's known for today (if he's known at all, alas.)

Fredric March was a very fine actor but not a comedian. He is the weakest link; but he works well in the ensemble.

Edward Everett Horton is funny, as always.

It really works, and is as racy today as it must have been when it came out.

This really is a great movie from 1933 and very ahead of its time.A young woman who is in love with two friends and is obviously sleeping with both of them must have shocked a more prudish audience back then i think it had been censored for a while.But never mind we can view it today knowing that there are a lot of gems like this one waiting to be rediscovered,its a shame that so many of the films made from this era are now lost.A modern audience wouldn't turn away from this film,as you don't expect a film from this era to be saucy and it is.Gary Cooper was a very nice actor and you can see why he was so popular back then,he had a very unusual style of being very masculine and at the same time very sensitive,he was great at picking the more complex roles,his characters weren't as one dimensional as most actors of this era.He was easily one of the most interesting actors of the 30s,this i would say was his best era in films.Unfortunately A Farewell To Arms is the only film you can buy in the UK from this era,i don't know why.Its sad that he is becoming a forgotten actor,i think we must have lost our imaginations a bit as we keep harbouring on with the John Waynes and the Cary Grants,and forget there were other classic actors around that don't deserve to be forgotten yet.

"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.

Ernst Lubitsch has a way of making his films feel light and airy, so breezily sophisticated, and so simply joyful. They always seem to put me in a good mood, and this one is no exception. Miriam Hopkins is a woman torn between two lovers (Frederic March and Gary Cooper), and rather than limit herself, cycles through having both, one or the other, and neither (the latter while she's with a third, Edward Everett Horton). It's a great cast and the banter crackles with naughty innuendo, but at the same time, there is somehow an innocent playfulness about it.

OK, well even as I write that, I think of all of the subtle (or not so subtle) sexual moments in the film:

• Hopkins laying back on a dusty bed and as the men stand over and breathing "I'm so nervous! Couldn't we all be a little bit more ... nonchalant?"
• Because of an agreement to live together with "no sex", Hopkins kissing the top of each of the men's heads, in turns.
• After Cooper says they're being unnatural to deny their desire ("We're unreal, the three of us, trying to play jokes on nature"), Hopkins reclining back sensually and signaling that the "no sex" agreement will be lifted ("It's true we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman.")
• Hopkins sitting in front of Cooper and reaching out to fondle the bottom part of his shirt, saying she'll have to sew a button on there.
• Hopkins to March when he returns: "I never forgot you. In fact, you never left me. You haunted me like a nasty ghost. On rainy nights I could hear you moaning down the chimney."
• Later, Hopkins saying that the bell to March's old typewriter still rings, while pressed up close to him and inches from his face.
• And lastly, a clear implication of a ménage à trois, as if that wasn't already the subtext running throughout the film.

It's a film that is (dangerously) liberating and empowering to women and their sexuality, and yet it's wrapped up in something that's charming and fun. The movie poster is fantastic too.

Some other lines I liked: Hopkins, describing love, I just love how she delivered this: "Have you ever felt your brain catch fire, and a curious, dreadful thing go right through your body, down, down to your very toes, and leave you with your ears ringing?"

Hopkins, pointing out the double standard: "A thing happened to me that usually happens to men. You see, a man can meet two, three, or even four women, and fall in love with all of them. And then, by a process of "interesting elimination," he's able to decide which one he prefers. But a woman must decide purely on instinct, guesswork, if she wants to be considered nice. Oh, it's quite all right for her to try on a hundred hats before she picks one out..."

Couldn't get into it. Dialogue, at least by Ben Hecht standards, was alarmingly un snappy. Maybe the guy needs reporters and other working stiffs, a la "Front Page" and "Nothing Sacred", rather than loafer boho types as we have here to arouse his pen, so to speak. And go ahead and shoot me but Frederic March just can't do comedy. (Although Coop surprisingly can.) Give it a C plus.

Lubitsch's adaptation of the Noel Coward play about a ménage à trois starring Gary Cooper, Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins. The two men play a painter and a poet, and Hopkins the girl who moves in with them as their muse and critic. Edward Everett Horton plays the more down-to-Earth man who also vies for Hopkin's attention. Apparently, only the plot of Coward's play is kept here, with all of the dialogue excised because it was too dirty for 1930s Hollywood. Even with that, the film was censored on release and, after 1934, when the Hayes Code was in stronger effect, it wasn't allowed to be shown at all. As it is, it's quite a fantastic movie, as you might expect from Lubitsch. It's funny and charming, but it's also quite a bit darker and more serious than the American films he had made before it in the sound era. I'd really like to read and/or see the original Coward play, but Lubitsch's version is undoubtedly a very good film.

098: Design for Living (1933) - released 12/29/1933, viewed 6/28/07.

DOUG: We reach the end of 1933 at long last, and an excellent finish it is with a highly underrated comedy starring Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper, and Fredrich March. If you're looking for great comedies from the 30's and you've already gone through the Marx Brothers, just do a search for "Ernst Lubitsch" and go nuts. A lot of movies from this period date themselves, but somehow Lubitsch's films hold up, with a combination of great writing and great comedic acting that it seems only Lubitsch can bring out. The three leads, Hopkins, Cooper, and March, play characters that you would love to hang out with, people who are witty and cool, inspired, and love to trade quips and barbs with each other with complete honesty. Everybody is just a little bit crazy in that fun, charming, sexy kind of way that Lubitsch does so well. The dialogue is so crisp and so funny. You just don't hear the word "sex" spoken very often in the 30's, so that when you do hear it, as you will several times in this film, it's a little jarring (but in a good way). Also props go out to Everett Van Horten (also from Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise) as the straight man who just can't understand this gang.

KEVIN: Wow. Why isn't this movie a classic? Because it is in my book. One of the most enjoyable movies of the year, or next year, or the entire decade I expect, is the hilarious and endlessly quotable Design for Living, directed by Ernst Lubitsch from a play by Noel Coward, starring Gary Cooper, Fredric March, and the always fantastic Miriam Hopkins. There are so few movies I've seen where nearly every line of dialogue is either a joke or is a set up for a joke. Lubitsch and Ben Hecht's fine-tuning of Coward's play brings out an incredible energy that proves Lubitsch's skill not just for silent moments, but great dialogue as well. The three leads give enormously likable standout performances as three struggling artists (two guys and a girl) in star-crossed love, who pour that energy of love into their work. They find success, but it's the emotional companionship that trumps it all. What I love about the story is that these three individuals are all-around good people and whatever happens to them, we really hope that they work it out.

Last film: Sons of the Desert (1933). Next film viewed: Wings (1927). Next film chronologically: It Happened One Night (1934).