Design for Living (1933)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Design for Living (1933) – E. Lubitsch

The Lubitsch touch was a certain wink-wink naughtiness put forth in a sublime comic way that kept things elegant rather than crass or raunchy.  Or at least that’s my interpretation.  Here, Gary Cooper and Frederic March are best friends, a painter and a playwright, who fall in love with Miriam Hopkins.  However, she can’t decide which she prefers and instead they decide to live together as a threesome – but no sex allowed.  Of course, this doesn’t quite work out (or does it?).  Edward Everett Horton is the fuddy-duddy foil to the merry three -- although somehow he is less funny than in the Astaire/Rogers films.  In fact, the whole package is somewhat less delicious than other Lubitsch hits (Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner, Ninotchka, Heaven Can Wait, To Be or Not To Be) – this may be a result of the screenwriter, Ben Hecht, who excelled in a different kind of comedy (His Girl Friday, Nothing Sacred, Twentieth Century).  Nevertheless, Design for Living crosses many lines in its review of the plausibility of the menage a trois (something the censor would never allow a few years later) and it has a distinct feminist flair with Hopkins definitely in control.  Not quite a revelation but never less than enjoyable.