Design for Living

Design for Living (Ernst Lubitsch, 1933) High class production about the bohemian class. Noel Coward's play (which had nothing to do with the bohemian class) about a menage a trois (and, by association, a menage a quatre) is given a rinse of the more suggestive parts by Ben Hecht (it's Pre-Code, so they don't go through too many cycles on this one, just to keep both the prudes and the lascivious in a lather) and an added dash of charm by director Lubitsch and cast with a collection of players that folks wouldn't have bat an eye at before, but in retrospect (given subsequent histories), is a bit unexpected.

En route to Paris, graphics artist Gilda Hopkins (Miriam Hopkins) shares a train compartment with two American down-on-their-heels artistic wanna-be's, painter George Curtis (Gary Cooper) and playwright Thomas Chambers (Fredric March), both of whom become enchanted with Gilda, and she with them (“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 is able to decide which 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.”) but agree with her to keep things merely friendly and professional, as she starts to act as confidante and muse for both their lives and their art. That she is also sought-after by her much-too-old boss, Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton) only complicates matters.

George, Thomas and Gilda decide to share a loft and make a pact of no hanky, no panky and no combination of the two, as the off-beat living arrangements create a certain amount of tension between the three. Meanwhile, Gilda uses her connections to jump-start the two men's careers. Thomas' latest play is put in the hands of a London producer, and soon, he's flying off to help with re-writes and overseeing production.

"No sex. A gentleman's agreement..."

In his absence, Gilda and George begin an affair while, in London, Tom's absence makes his heart grow fonder and he decides then and there to marry Gilda once the play opens. But running into Plunkett at the theater, he discovers that George and Gilda are now a couple, and rushes back to Paris only to find that the lovers have moved out of the loft. George, however, is in Nice working on a commissioned portrait, and so Tom seizes the opportunity to make a stand. 

"Unfortunately, I'm no gentleman."

Gilda reluctantly agrees to see Tom, and—wouldn't you know it?—she decides she's really in love with Tom and they begin an affair while George is out of town. Except, George comes back and finds the two lovers in his own penthouse love-nest and things turn ugly. It seems that three's company and two's are not to be trusted. What's a girl to do?

She complicates things, of course. Gilda decides to marry her boss, Plunkett, but the marriage cannot be consummated when George and Tom send over potted plants as gifts ("It would have been much more tactful for them to forget!") which so upsets Gilda that she hides in her room, crying. Then, at a large soiree the couple is throwing for Plunkett's clients, Tom and George crash it, making mischief wherever they go, including Gilda's bedroom, which infuriates Plunkett. The marriage is over and the three decide to move back in together.

Now, this is in the Pre-Code era before content restrictions were self-imposed on studio's, so although it may seem raunchy, everything is merely suggested. In fact, Hecht's adaptation (although Coward bitched it was hardly that) makes the trio far more relatable to the movie-going public by taking it out of the rarefied air of British manners and class, and making the two artist-types Americans. You couldn't mistake March, a deft farceur, or Cooper—still in his glamour days before he aged into more rural authenticity—for upper-crust, even if you dress them in tails. And Horton maintains his professional befuddlement. 

Hopkins, of course, has the toughest role, making her designer charming despite an inability to make up her mind and a tendency towards—dare we say it?—capriciousness (we didn't dare say it). But, it's perfectly true that she's merely playing a man's game in the sexually sampling context and the men play by the same rules. This was 1933 and it seems like (now) the only women in movies who take the same attitude are labelled promiscuous or villainous. This is progress?

The film stays light, funny, extraordinarily quotable—without any Coward—and froths with "The Lubitsch Touch." At the same time, in that time or ours, it's also a little revolutionary. Vive le révolution.